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St. Peter’s Umbrella 


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Copyright, 1900, by Jarrold & Sons. 
All rights rtstrved 


CONTENTS 

• 

PAGE 

INTRODUCTION, , ' . . . . vii 

» 

PART I. — THE LEGEND. 

CHAPTER 

I. LITTLE VERONICA IS TAKEN AWAY, . 3 


II. 

GLOGOVA AS IT USED TO BE, 

• 9 

7 

III. 

THE NEW PRIEST AT GLOGOVA, 

• • 

11 

IV. 

THE UMBRELLA AND ST. PETER, 


25 

PART II. — THE GREGORICS FAMILY. 


1. 

THE TACTLESS MEMBER OF THE FAMILY, 

49 

11. 

“DUBIOUS SIGNS, . 

9 9 

63 

hi. 

pAl GREGORICS’S DEATH AND WILL, 

77 

IV. 

THE AVARICIOUS GREGORICS, . 

9 • 

92 


PART III.— TRACES. 



‘ 1. 

THE UMBRELLA AGAIN, 

• • 

123 

11. 

OUR rosAlia, 

• • 

138 

hi. 

THE TRACES LEAD TO GLOGOVA, 

• 9 

144 

IV. 

THE EARRING, 

• • 

160 


u 




V 



























































































































INTRODUCTION 


Kalman Mikszath, perhaps the most purely 
national, certainly, after Jokai, the most popular 
of all the Magyar novelists, was born at Szkla- 
bonya, in the county of Nograd, on January 16th, 
1849. Educated at Rimaszombath and Pest, he 
adopted the legal profession, and settled down as 
a magistrate in his native county, where his fam- 
ily had for generations lived the placid, patriar- 
chal life of small country squires. A shrewd ob- 
server, with a strong satrical bent and an ardent 
love of letters, the young advocate made his 
debut as an author, at the age of twenty-five, with 
a volume of short stories, which failed, however, 
to catch the public taste. Shortly afterward he 
flitted to Szeged, and contributed to the leading 
periodical there a series of sketches, whose pi- 
quant humor and perfection of style attracted so 
much notice as to encourage' a bookseller in the 
famous city on the Theiss to publish, in 1881, an- 
other volume of tales, the epoch-making “ Tot 


IX 


Introduction 


Atyafiak,” which was followed, four months later, 
by a supplementary volume, entitled “ A jo palo- 
czok.” Critics of every school instantly hailed 
these two little volumes as the finished master- 
pieces of a new and entirely original genre, the 
like of which had hitherto been unknown in Hun- 
gary. The short story had, indeed, been previ- 
ously cultivated, with more or less of success, by 
earlier Magyar writers; but these first attempts 
had, for the most part, been imitations of foreign 
novelists, mere exotics which struck no deep root 
in the national literature. Mikszath was the 
first to study from the life the peculiarities and 
characteristics of the peasantry among whom he 
dwelt, the first to produce real, vivid pictures of 
Magyar folk-life in a series of humoresks, dramas, 
idylls— call them what you will — of unsurpassa- 
ble grace and delicacy, seasoned with a pleas- 
antly pungent humor, but never without a sub- 
flavor of that tender melancholy which lies at the 
heart of the Hungarian peasantry. And these 
exquisite miniatures were set in the frame of a 
lucid, pregnant, virile style, not unworthy of Mau- 
, passant or Kjelland. Henceforth Mikszath was 
sure of an audience. In 1883 he removed to 
Pest, and in the following year a fresh series of 
sketches, “ A tisztelt hazbol,” appeared in the 
columns of the leading Hungarian newspaper, the 
“ Pesti Hirlap,” which established his reputation 


x 


Introduction 


once for all. During the last twelve years Miks- 
zath has published at least a dozen volumes, and, 
so far, his productivity shows no sign of exhaus- 
' tion. The chief literary societies of his native 
land, including the Hungarian Academy, have all 
opened their doors to hirh, and since 1882 he has 
been twice, unanimously, elected a member of the 
Hungarian Parliament, in the latter case, oddly 
enough, representing a constituency vacated by 
his illustrious compeer and fellow-humorist, 
Maurus Jokai. Fortunately for literature, he has 
shown no very remarkable aptitude for politics. 
When I add that in 1873 Mikszath married Miss 
Ilona Mauks, and has two children living, who 
have frequently figured in his tales, I have said all 
that need be said of the life-story of this charming 
and interesting author. 

As already implied, the forte of Mikszath is the 
conte, and as a conteur he has few equals in 
modern literature. “ A jo paloczok,” in particu- 
lar, has won a world-wide celebrity, and been 
translated into nearly every European language 
except English, the greater part of the Swedish 
version being by the accomplished and versatile 
pen of King Oscar. But Mikszath has also es- 
sayed the romance with eminent success, and it is 
, one of his best romances that is now presented to 
the reader. “ Szent Peter esernyoje,” to give it 
its Magyar title, is a quaintly delightful narrative 

xi 


Introduction 


in a romantic environment of out-of-the-world 
Slovak villages, with a ragged red Umbrella and a 
brand-new brass Caldron as the good and evil 
geniuses of the piece respectively. The Um- 
brella, which is worth a king’s ransom, is sold 
for a couple of florins to the “ white Jew ” of the 
district, becomes the tutelary deity — or shall I say 
, the fetish ? — of half a dozen parishes, and is only 
recovered, after the lapse of years, by* its lawful 
owner, when, by a singular irony of fate, it has 
become absolutely valueless — from a pecuniary 
point of view. The Caldron, on the other hand, 
which is erroneously supposed to contain count- 
less treasures, and is the outcome of a grimly prac- 
tical joke, proves a regular box of Pandora, and 
originates a famous lawsuit which lasts ten years 
and ruins three families — who deserve no better 
fate; How the Umbrella and the Caldron first 
come into the story the reader must be left to find 
out for himself. Suffice it to say that grouped 
around them are very many pleasant and — -by way 
of piquant contrast — a sprinkling of unpleasant 
personages, whose adventures and vicissitudes 
will, I am convinced, supply excellent entertain- 
ment to all lovers of fine literature and genuine 
humor. 

$L Nisbet Bain. 




PART I 

<* 




/ 


•i 








































CHAPTER I. 


LITTLE VERONICA IS TAKEN AWAY. 

The schoolmaster’s widow at the Halap was 
dead. When a schoolmaster dies there is not 
much of a funeral, but when his widow follows 
him, there is still less fuss made. And this one 
had left nothing but a goat, a goose she had 
been fattening, and a tiny girl of two years. The 
goose ought to have been fattened at least a 
week longer, but the poor woman had not been 
able to hold out so long. As far as the goose 
was concerned she had died too soon, for the 
child it was too late. In fact, she ought never 
to have been born. It would have been better 
had the woman died when her husband did. 
(Dear me, what a splendid voice that man had 
to be sure!) 

The child was born some months after its 
father’s death. The mother was a good, honest 
woman, but after all it did not seem quite right, 
for they already had a son, a priest, a very good 
son on the whole, only it was a pity he could not 

3 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


help his mother a bit; but he was very poor him- 
self, and lived a long way off in Wallachia, as 
chaplain to an old priest. But it was said that two 
weeks ago he had been presented with a living 
in a small village called Glogova, somewhere in 
the mountains between Selmeczbanya and Besz- 
tercebanya. There was a man in Halap, Janos 
Kapiczany, who had passed there once when he 
was driving some oxen to a fair, and he said it 
was a miserable little place. 

And now the schoolmaster’s widow must 
needs go and die, just when her son might have 
been able to help her a little. * But no amount 
of talking would bring her back again, and I 
must say, for the honor of the inhabitants of 
Halap, that they gave the poor soul a very de- 
cent funeral. 

There was not quite enough money collected 
to defray the expenses, so they had to sell the 
goat to make up the sum; but the goose was left, 
though there was nothing for it to feed on, so it 
gradually got thinner and thinner, till it was its 
original size again; and instead of waddling 
about in the awkward, ungainly way it had done 
on account of its enormous size, it began to 
move in a more stately manner; in fact, its life 
had been saved by the loss of another. God in 
His wisdom by taking one life often saves an- 
other, for, believe me, senseless beings are entered 


4 


Little Veronica is Taken Away 

in His book as well as sensible ones, and He 
takes as much care of them as of kings and 
princes. 

The wisdom of God is great, but that of the 
judge of Halap was not trifling either. He 
ordered that after the funeral the little girl (Ver- 
onica was her name) was to spend one day ; at 
every house in the village in turns, and was to, 
be looked after as one of the family. 

“ And how long is that to last?” asked one of 
the villagers. 

“ Until I deign to give orders to the contrary,” 
answered the judge shortly. And so things went 
on for ten days, until Mate Billeghi decided to 
take his wheat to Besztercebanya to sell, for he 
had heard that the Jews down that way were not 
yet so sharp as in the neighborhood of Halap. 
This was a good chance for the judge. 

“ Well,” he said, “ if you take your wheat 
there, you may as well take the child to her 
brother. Glogova must be somewhere that way.” 

“ Not a bit of it,” was the answer, “ it is in 
a totally different direction.” 

“ It must be down that way if I wish it,” thun- 
dered out the judge. 

Billeghi tried to get out of it, saying it was 
awkward for him, and out of his way. But it was 
of no use, when the judge ordered a thing, it 
had to be done. So one Wednesday they put the 

5 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


sacks of wheat into Billeghi’s cart, and on the top 
of them a basket containing Veronica and the 
goose, for the latter was, of course, part of the 
priest’s inheritance. The good folks of the village 
had made shortbread and biscuits for the little 
orphan to take with her on her journey out into 
the great world, and they also filled a basket with 
pears and plums ; and as the cart drove off, many 
of them shed tears for the poor little waif, who 
had no idea where they were taking her to, but 
only saw that when the horses began to move, 
she still kept her place in the basket, and only the 
houses and trees seemed to move. 


CHAPTER II. 


GLOGOVA AS IT USED TO BE. 

Not only the worthy Kapiczany had seen 
Glogova, the writer of these pages has also been 
there. It is a miserable little place in a narrow 
valley between bare mountains. There is not a 
decent road for miles around, much less a railway. 
Nowadays they say there is some sort of an old- 
fashioned engine, with a carriage or two attached, 
which plies between Besztercebanya and Selmecz- 
banya, but even that does not pass near to Glo- 
gova. It will take at least five hundred years to 
bring it up to that pitch of civilization other 
villages have reached. 

The soil is poor, a sort of clay, and very little 
will grow there except oats and potatoes, and 
even these have to be coaxed from the ground. 
A soil like that cannot be spoken of as “ Mother 
Earth/’ it is more like “ Mother-in-law Earth.” 
It is full of pebbles, and has broad cracks here 
and there, on the borders of which a kind of 
whitish weed grows, called by the peasants 


7 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


“ orphans’ hair.” Is the soil too old? Why, it 
cannot be older than any other soil, but' its 
strength has been used up more rapidly. Down 
below in the plain they have been growing noth- 
ing but grass for about a thousand years, but up 
here enormous oak-trees used to grow ; so it is no 
wonfler that the soil has lost its strength. Poverty 
and misery are to be found here, and yet a certain 
feeling of romance takes possession of one at the 
sight of it. The ugly peasant huts seem only to 
heighten the beauty of the enormous rocks which 
rise above us. It would be a sin to build castles 
there, which, with their ugly modern towers, 
would hide those wild-looking rocks. 

The perfume of the elder and juniper fills the 
air, but there are no other flowers, except here 
and there in one of the tiny gardens, a mallow, 
which a barefooted, fair-haired Slovak girl tends, 
and waters from a broken jug. I see the little 
village before me, as it was in 1873, when I was 
there last ; I see its small houses, the tiny gardens 
sown partly with clover, partly with maize, with 
here and there a plum-tree, its branches supported 
by props. For the fruit-trees at least did their 
duty, as though they had decided to make up to 
the poor Slovaks for the poverty of their harvest. 

When I was there the priest had just died, and 
we had to take an inventory of his possessions. 
There was nothing worth speaking of, a few bits 

8 


Glogova as it Used To Be 


of furniture, old and well worn, and a few shabby 
cassocks. But the villagers were sorry to lose 
the old priest. 

“ He was a good man,” they said, “ but he had 
no idea of economy, though, after all, he had not 
very much to economize with.” 

“ Why don’t you pay your priest better ?” we 
asked. And a big burly peasant answered: 

“ The priest is not our servant, but the servant 
of God, and every master must pay his own ser- 
vant.” 

After making the inventory, and while the 
coachman was harnessing the horses, we walked 
across the road to have a look at the school, for 
my companion was very fond of posing as a 
patron of learning. 

The schoolhouse was small and low, with a 
simple, thatched roof. Only the church had 
a wooden roof, but even the House of God was 
very simply built, and there was no tower to it, 
only a small belfry at one side. 

The schoolmaster was waiting for us. If I 
remember rightly his name was Gyorgy Majzik. 
He was a strong, robust-looking man, with an 
interesting, intelligent face, and a plain, straight- 
forward way of speaking which immediately 
awoke a feeling of friendship in one. He took 
/ us in to see the children ; the girls sat on one side, 

the boys on the other, all as tidy and clean as 


9 


f 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


possible. They rose on our entrance, and in 
a singing voice said : 

“Vitajtye panyi, vitajtye!” (Good-morning, 
honored sirs!) 

My companion put a few questions to the rosy, 
round-faced children, who stared at us with their 
large brown eyes. They all had brown eyes. The 
questions were, of course, not difficult, but they 
caused the children an amount of serious think- 
ing. However, my friend was indulgent, and he 
only patted the schoolmaster on the back and 
said : 

“ I am quite contented with their answers, my 
friend.” 

The schoolmaster bowed, then, with his head 
held high, he accompanied us out to the road. 


CHAPTER III. 

THE NEW PRIEST AT GLOGOVA. 

The new priest had arrived in the only cart 
the villagers had at their disposal. Two cows 
were harnessed to it, and on the way the sacristan 
stopped to milk them, and then offered some of 
the milk to the young priest. 

“ It’s very good milk,” he said, “ especially 
Bimbo’s.” 

His reverence’s luggage was not bulky ; it con- 
sisted of a plain wooden box, a bundle of bed- 
clothes, two walking-sticks, and some pipes tied 
together with string. As they passed through the 
various villages the sacristan was often chaffed 
by the inhabitants. 

“ Well,” they called out to him, “ couldn’t you 
find a better conveyance than that for your new 
priest?” 

Whereupon the sacristan tried to justify his 
fellow-villagers by saying with a contemptuous 
look at the luggage in the cart : 


II 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


“ It’s good enough, I’m sure. Why, a calf 
a month old could draw those things.” 

But if he had not brought much with him in 
the way of worldly goods, Janos Belyi did not 
find much either in his new parish, which ap- 
peared to be going to wreck and ruin. The rela- 
tions of the dead priest had taken away every stick 
they could lay hands on, and had only left a dog, 
his favorite. It was a dog such as one sees every 
day, as far as his shape and coat were concerned, 
but he was now in a very unpleasant position. 
After midday he began to wander from house to 
house in the village, slinking into the kitchens; 
for his master had been in the habit of dining 
every day with one or other of his parishioners, 
and always took his dog with him. 

The dog’s name was Vistula, but his master 
need not have gone so far to find the name 
of a river, when the Bjela Voda flowed right 
through the meadows outside the village. (The 
Hungarian peasants generally give their dogs 
the name of a river, thinking it prevents hydro- 
phobia. ) The dog had already begun to feel that 
he and the priest together had been better received 
than he alone, though, until now, he had always 
imagined, with his canine philosophy, that his 
master had in reality been eating more than his 
share of the food. But now he saw the difference, 
for he was driven away from the houses where 


12 


The New Priest at Glogova 


he had once been an honored guest. So altogether 
he was in a very miserable, lean condition when 
the new priest arrived. The sacristan had shown 
him his new home, with its four bare walls, its 
garden overgrown with weeds, its empty stable 
and fowl-house.. The poor young man smiled. , 

“ And is that all mine?” he asked. 

“ All of it, everything you see here,” was the 
answer, “ and this dog too.” 

“ Whose dog is it?” 

“ It belonged to the poor dead priest, God rest 
his soul. We wanted to kill the poor beast, but 
no one dares to, for they say that the spirit of his 
old master would come back and haunt us.” 

The dog was looking at the young priest in 
a melancholy, almost tearful way; perhaps the 
sight of the cassock awoke sad memories in him. 

“ I will keep him,” said the priest, and stooping 
down he patted the dog’s lean back. “ At all 
events there will be some living thing near 
me.” 

“ That will be quite right,” said the sacristan. 
“ One must make a beginning, though one gener- 
ally gets something worth watching first, and 
then looks out for a watch-dog. But it doesn’t 
matter if it is the other way about.” 

Janos Belyi smiled (he had a very winning 
smile, like a girl’s), for he saw that old Vistula 
would not have much to do, in fact would be quite 


13 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


like a private gentleman in comparison to his 
companions. 

All this time people had been arriving in the 
yard to have a look at the new priest ; the women 
kept at a distance, and said : “ Dear me ! so young 
and already in holy orders !” 

The men went up and shook hands with him, 
saying, “ God bless you ! May you be happy with 
us !” ; 

An old woman called out, “ May you be with 
us till your death!” ; 

The older women admired his looks, and re- 
marked how proud his mother must be of him. 

In fact the new priest seemed to have taken 
every one’s fancy, and he spoke a few words with 
them all, and then said he was tired, and went 
across to the schoolmaster’s, for he was to live 
there for a time till he could get his own place 
a bit straight, and until he saw some signs of an 
income. 

Only a few of the more important villagers 
accompanied him to talk over the state of affairs : 
Peter Szlavik, the sacristan ; Mihaly Gongoly, the 
nabob of Glogova ; and the miller, Gyorgy Klinc- 
sok. He began to question them, and took out 
his note-book, in order to make notes as to what 
his income was likely to be. 

“ How many inhabitants are there in the vil- 
lage?” 


■ 1.4 


The New Priest at Glogova 


“ Rather less th&n five hundred.” 

“ And how much do they pay the priest ?” 

They began to reckon out how much wood they 
had to give, how much corn, and how much wine. 
The young priest looked more and more serious 
as they went on. 

“ That is very little,” he said sadly. “ And 
what are the fees?” 

“ Oh, they are large enough,” answered Klinc- 
sok ; “ at a funeral it depends on the dead person, 
at a wedding it depends on the people to be 
married; but they are pretty generous on that 
occasion as a rule ; and at a christening one florin 
is paid. Fm sure that's enough, isn't it?” 

“And how many weddings are there in a 
year?” 

“ Oh, that depends on the potato harvest. 
Plenty of potatoes, plenty of weddings. The 
harvest decides it ; but as a rule there are at least 
four or five.” 

“ That is not many. And how many deaths 
occur?” 

“That depends on the quality of the potato 
harvest. If the potatoes are bad, there are many 
deaths, if they are good, there are less deaths, for 
we are not such fools as to die then. Of course 
now and then a falling tree in the woods strikes 
one or the other dead; or an accident happens to 
a cart, and the driver is killed. You may reckon 

IS 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


a year with eight deaths a good one as far as you 
are concerned." 

“ But they don't all belong to the priest/' said 
the nabob of Glogova, smoothing back his hair. 

“ Why, how is that?" asked the priest. 

“ Many of the inhabitants of Glogova are 
never buried in the cerpetery at all. The wolves 
eat them without ever announcing it in the 
parish." 

“ And some die in other parts of the country,” 
went on Gyorgy Klincsok, “ so that only very few 
of them are buried here." 

“ It is a bad lookout," said the priest. “ But 
the parish fields, what about them?" 

Now they all wanted to speak at once, but 
Klincsok pulled the sacristan aside, and stood up 
in front of the priest. 

“ Fields ?" he said. “ Why you can have as 
much ground as you like. If you want one hun- 
dred acres ..." 

“ One hundred acres 1" shouted Szlavik, “ five 
hundred if you like ; we shall not refuse our priest 
any amount of ground he likes to ask for." . 

The priest's countenance began to clear, but 
honest Szlavik did not long leave him in doubt. 

“ The fact is," he began, “ the boundaries of 
the pasture-lands of Glogova are not well defined 
to this day. There are no proper title-deeds; 
there was some arrangement made with regard 

:i 6 


The New Priest at Glogova 


to them, but in 1823 there was a great fire here, 
and all our documents were burnt. So every one 
takes as much of the land as he and his family 
can till. Each man ploughs his own field, and 
when it is about used up he looks out a fresh bit 
of land. So half the ground is always unused, 
of course the worst part, into which it is not worth 
while putting any work.” 

“ I see,” sighed the priest, “ and that half 
belongs to the church.” 

It was not a very grand lookout, but by 
degrees he got used to the idea of it, and if 
unpleasant thoughts would come cropping up, 
he dispersed them by a prayer. When praying, he 
was on his own ground, a field which always 
brought forth fruit; he could reap there at any 
minute all he was in need of — patience, hope, 
comfort, content. He set to work to get his 
house in order, so that he could at least be alone. 
Luckily he had found in the next village an old 
school friend, Tamas Urszinyi, a big, broad- 
shouldered man, plain-spoken, but kind-hearted. 

“ Glogova is a wretched hole,” he said, “ but 
not every place can be the Bishopric of Neutra. 
However, you will have to put up with it as it is. 
Daniel was worse off in the lions’ den, and after 
all these are only sheep.” 

“ Which have no wool,” remarked his rever- 
ence, smiling. 


1 7 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


“ They have wool, but you have not the 
shears/’ 

In a few days he had furnished his house with 
the money he had borrowed of his friend, and 
one fine autumn afternoon he was able to take 
possession of his own house. Oh, how delightful 
it was to arrange things as he liked! What 
pleasant dreams he would have lying in his own 
bed, on pillows made by his own mother! He 
thought over it all when he lay down to sleep, 
and before going to sleep he counted the corners 
of the room so as to be sure and remember his 
dreams. (The Hungarian peasants say, that 
when you sleep in a room for the first time you 
must count the corners, then you will remember 
your dream, which is sure to come true.) He 
remembered his dream the next morning, and it 
was a very pleasant one. He was chasing butter- 
flies in the fields outside his native village, looking 
for birds’ nests, playing games with the boys and 
girls, having a quarrel with Pali Szabo, and they 
were just coming to blows when some one tapped 
at the window outside. 

The priest awoke and rubbed his eyes. It was 
morning, the sun was shining into the room. 

“ Who is it?” he called out. 

“ Open the door, Janko !” 

Janko! Who was calling him Janko? It 
seemed to him as though it were one of his old 

18 


The New Priest at Glogova 


schoolfellows, from whom he had just parted in 
his dream. 

He jumped out of bed and ran to the window. 

“ Who is it?” he repeated. 

“ It is I,” was the answer, “ Mate Billeghi 
from your old home. Come out, Janko, no, I 
mean of course, please come out, your reverence. 
I’ve brought something.” 

The priest dressed hastily. His heart was 
beating fast with a kind of presentiment that he 
was to hear bad news. He opened the door and 
stepped out^pff-y 

“ Here I am, Mr. Billeghi ; what have you 
brought me?” 

But Mr. Billeghi had left the window and gone 
back to the cart, where he was unfastening the 
basket containing little Veronica and the goose. 
The horses hung their heads, and one of them 
tried to lie down, but the shaft was in the way, 
and when he tried the other side, he felt the 
harness cutting into his side, which reminded 
him that he was not in the stable, and a horse’s 
honorable feeling will not allow of its lying down, 
as long as it is harnessed to the cart. There 
must be something serious the matter to induce 
it to lie down in harness, for a horse has a high 
sense of duty. 

Mate Billeghi now turned round and saw the 
priest standing near him. 


19 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


“ Hallo, Janko ! Why, how you have grown ! 
How surprised your mother would be if she were 
alive! Bother this rope, I did make a firm knot 
in it!” 

The priest took a step toward the cart, where 
Billeghi was still struggling with the knot. The 
words, “ if your mother were alive,” had struck 
him like a blow, his head began to swim, his legs 
to tremble. 

“ Are you speaking of my mother ?” he stam- 
mered. “ Is my mother dead ?” 

“ Yes, poor woman, she has given up the ghost. 
But” (and here he took out his knife and began 
to cut the rope) “ here is your little sister, Janko, 
that is, I mean, your reverence; my memory is 
as weak as a chicken’s, and I always forget whom 
I am talking to. I’ve brought your reverence’s 
little sister; where shall I put her down?” 

And with that he lifted up the basket in which 
the child was sleeping soundly with the goose 
beside her. The bird seemed to be acting the 
part of nurse to her, driving off the flies which 
tried to settle on her little red mouth. 

The autumn sunlight fell on the basket and the 
sleeping child, and Mate was standing with his 
watery blue eyes fixed on the priest’s face, waiting 
for a word or a sign from him. 

“ Dead !” he murmured after a time. “ Impos- 
sible. I had no feeling of it.” He put his hand 


20 


The New Priest at Glogova 


to his head, saying sadly, “ No one told me, and 
I was not there at the funeral.” 

“ I was not there either,” said Mate, as though 
that would console the other for his absence ; and 
then added, as an afterthought: 

“ God Almighty took her to Himself, He called 
her to His throne. He doesn’t leave one of us 
here. Bother those frogs, now I’ve trodden on 
one !” 

There were any amount of them in the weedy 
courtyard of the Presbytery; they came out of 
the holes in the damp walls of the old church. 

“ Where shall I put the child ?” repeated Mr. 
Billeghi, but as he received no answer, he de- 
posited her gently on the small veranda. 

The priest stood with his eyes fixed on the 
ground; it seemed to him as though the earth, 
with the houses and gardens, Mate Billeghi and 
the basket, were all running away, and only he 
was standing there, unable to move one way or 
the other. From the Ukrica woods in the distance 
there came a rustling of leaves, seeming to bring 
with it a sound that spoke to his heart, the sound 
of his mother’s voice. He listened, trembling, 
and trying to distinguish the words. Again they 
are repeated; what are they? 

“ Janos, Janos, take care of my child!” 

But while Janos was occupied in listening to 
voices from a better land, Mate was getting tired 


21 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


of waiting, and muttering something to himself 
about not getting even a “ thank you” for his 
trouble, he prepared to start. 

“ Well, if that’s the way they do things in these 
parts, I’ll be off,” he grumbled, and cracking his 
whip he added, “ Good-by, your reverence. Gee- 
up, Sarmany!” 

Father Janos still gave no answer, did not even 
notice what was going on around him, and the 
horses were moving on, Mate Billeghi walking 
beside them, for they had to go uphill now, and 
the good man was muttering to himself something 
about its being the way of the world, and only 
natural that if a chicken grows into a peacock, of 
course the peacock does not remember the time 
when it was a chicken. When he got up 
to the top of the hill he turned round and saw 
the priest still standing in the same place, and, 
making one last effort to attract his attention, 
he shouted : 

“ Well, I’ve given you what I was told to, so 
good-by.” 

The priest’s senses at last returned from the 
paths in which they had been wandering, far 
away, with his mother. In imagination he was 
kneeling at her death-bed, and with her last 
breath she was bidding him take care of his little 
sister. 

There was no need for it to be written nor to 


22 


The New Priest at Glogova 


be telegraphed to him; there were higher forces 
which communicated the fact to him. 

Janos’s first impulse was to run after Mate, and 
ask him to stop and tell him all about his mother, 
how she had lived during the last two years, how 
she had died, how they had buried her, in fact, 
everything. But the cart was a long way off by 
now, and, besides, his eyes at that moment caught 
sight of the basket and its contents, and they took 
up his whole attention. 

His little sister was still asleep in the basket. 
The young priest had never yet seen the child, 
for he had not been home since his father’s 
funeral, and she was not born then; so he had 
only heard of her existence from his mother’s 
letters, and they were always so short. Janos 
went up to the basket and looked at the small rosy 
face. He found it bore a strong resemblance to 
his mother’s, and as he looked the face seemed 
to grow bigger, and he saw the features of his 
mother before him; but the vision only lasted 
a minute, and the child’s face was there again. 
If she would only open her eyes ! But they were 
firmly closed, and the long eyelashes lay like 
silken fringes on her cheeks. 

“ And I am to take care of this tiny creature?” 
thought Janos. “ And I will take care of her. 
But how am I to do it? I have nothing to live 
on myself. What shall I do?” 


23 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


He did as he always had done until now, when 
he had been in doubt, and turned toward the 
church in order to say a prayer there. The church 
was open, and two old women were inside, white- 
washing the walls. So the priest did not go quite 
in but knelt down before a crucifix at the entrance. 


CHAPTER IV. 


THE UMBRELLA AND ST. PETER. 

Father Janos remained kneeling a long time 
and did not notice that a storm was coming up. 
When he came out of the church it was pouring 
in torrents, and before long the small mountain 
streams were so swollen that they came rushing 
down into the village street, and the cattle in 
their fright ran lowing into their stables. 

Janos's first thought was that he had left the 
child on the veranda, and it must be wet through. 
He ran home as fast as he could, but paused with 
surprise before the house. The basket was where 
he had left it, the child was in the basket, and the 
goose was walking about in the yard. The rain 
was still coming down in torrents, the veranda 
was drenched, but on the child not a drop had 
fallen, for an immense red umbrella had been 
spread over the basket. It was patched and 
darned to such an extent that hardly any of the 
original stuff was left, and the border of flowers 
round it was all but invisible. 


25 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


The young priest raised his eyes in gratitude 
to Heaven, and taking the child into his arms, 
carried it, under the red umbrella, into his room. 
The child’s eyes were open now; they were a 
lovely blue, and gazed wonderingly into the 
priest’s face. 

“ It is really a blessing,” he murmured, “ that 
the child did not get wet through ; she might have 
caught her death of cold, and I could not even 
have given her dry clothes.” 

But where had the umbrella come from? It 
was incomprehensible, for in the whole of Glogova 
there was not a single umbrella. 

In the next yard some peasants were digging 
holes for the water to run into. His reverence 
asked them all in turn, had they seen no one with 
the child? No, they had seen the child, but as 
far as they knew no one had been near it. Old 
Widow Adamecz, who had run home from the 
fields with a shawl over her head, had seen some- 
thing red and round, which seemed to fall from 
the clouds right over the child’s head. Might 
she turn to stone that minute if it were not true, 
and she was sure the Virgin Mary had sent it 
down from Heaven herself to the poor orphan 
child. 

Widow Adamecz was a regular old gossip; 
she was fond of a drop of brandy now and then, 
so it was no wonder she sometimes saw more 


26 


THE CHILD WAS IN THE BASKET 





























- 



























The Umbrella and St. Peter 


than she ought to have done. The summer before, 
on the eve of the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul, she 
had seen the skies open, and Heaven was before 
her ; she had heard the angels sing, as they passed 
in procession before God, sitting on a throne of 
precious stones. And among them she had seen 
her grandson, Janos Plachta, in a pretty red 
waistcoat which she herself had made him shortly 
before his death. And she had seen many of the 
inhabitants of Glogova who had died within the 
last few years, and they were all dressed in the 
clothes they had been buried in. 

You can imagine that after that, when the 
news of her vision was spread abroad, she was 
looked upon as a very holy person indeed. All 
the villagers came to ask if she had seen their 
dead relations in the procession ; this one’s daugh- 
ter, that one’s father, and the other one’s “ poor 
husband!” They quite understood that such a 
miracle was more likely to happen to her than 
to any one else, for a miracle had been worked 
on her poor dead father Andras, even though he 
had been looked upon in life as something of 
a thief. For when the high road had had to be 
made broader eight years before, they were 
obliged to take a bit of the cemetery in order to 
do it, and when they had opened Andras’s grave, 
so as to bury him again, they saw with astonish- 
ment that he had a long beard, though five 


27 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


witnesses swore to the fact that at the time of his 
death he was clean-shaven. 

So they were all quite sure that old Andras 
was in Heaven, and having been an old cheat 
all his life he would, of course, manage even up 
above to leave the door open a bit now and then, 
so that his dear Agnes could have a peep at what 
was going on. 

But Pal Kvapka, the bell-ringer, had another 
tale to tell. He said that when he had gone up 
the belfry to ring the clouds away, and had turned 
round for a minute, he saw the form of an old 
Jew crossing the fields beyond the village, and 
he had in his hands that immense red thing like 
a plate, which his reverence had found spread 
over the basket. Kvapka had thought nothing 
of it at the time, for he was sleepy, and the wind 
blew the dust in his eyes, but he could take an 
oath that what he had told them had really taken 
place. (And Pal Kvapka was a man who always 
spoke the truth.) Others had also seen the Jew. 
He was old, tall, gray-haired, his back was bent, 
and he had a crook in his hand, and when the wind 
carried his hat away, they saw that he had a large 
bald place at the back of his head. 

“ He was just like the picture of St. Peter in 
the church,” said the sacristan, who had seen him 
without his hat. “ He was like it in every respect,” 
he repeated, “ except that he had no keys in his 

28 


The Umbrella and St. Peter 


hand.” From the meadow he had cut across 
Stropov’s clover-field, where the Kratki’s cow, 
which had somehow got loose, made a rush at 
him; in order to defend himself he struck at it 
with his stick (and from that time, you can ask 
the Kratki family if it is not true, the cow gave 
fourteen pints of milk a day, whereas they used 
to have the greatest difficulty in coaxing four 
pints from it). 

At the other end of the village the old man 
had asked the miller’s servant-girl which was the 
way to Lehota, and Erzsi had told him, upon 
which he had started on the footpath up the moun- 
tains. Erzsi said she was sure, now she came to 
think of it, that he had a glory round his head. 

Why, of course it must have been St. Peter! 
Why should it not have been ? There was a time 
when he walked about on earth, and there are 
many stories told still as to all he had done then. 
And what had happened once could happen again. 
The wonderful news spread from house to house, 
that God had sent down from Heaven a sort of 
red-linen tent, to keep the rain off the priest’s 
little sister, and had chosen St. Peter himself for 
the mission. Thereupon followed a good time 
for the child, she became quite the fashion in the 
village. The old women began to make cakes 
for her, also milk puddings, and various other 
delicacies. His reverence had nothing to do but 


29 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


answer the door all day, and receive from his 
visitors plates, dishes, or basins wrapped up in 
clean cloths. The poor young priest could not 
make out what was going on in his new parish. 

“ Oh, your reverence, please, I heard your little 
sister had come, so I’ve brought her a trifle for 
her dinner; of course it might be better, but it 
is the best such poor folks as we can give. Our 
hearts are good, your reverence, but our flour 
might be better than it is, for that good-for- 
nothing miller burned it a bit the last time — at 
least, that part of it which he did not keep for 
his own use. May I look at the little angel? 
They say she’s a little beauty.” 

Of course his reverence allowed them all to 
look at her in turn, to pat her and smooth her 
hair; some of them even kissed her tiny feet. 

The priest was obliged to turn away now and 
then to hide the tears of gratitude. He reproached 
himself, too, for his hard thoughts of the good 
villagers. “How I have misjudged them!” he 
thought to himself. “There are no better peo- 
ple in the world. And how they love the 
child!” 

At tea-time Widow Adamecz appeared on the 
scene ; until now she had not troubled much about 
the new priest. She considered herself entitled 
to a word in the management of the ecclesiastical 
affairs of the village, and based her rights on the 


30 


The Umbrella and St. Peter 


fact of her father having grown a beard in his 
grave, which, of course, gave him a place among 
the saints at once. 

“ Your reverence,” she began, “ you will want 
some one to look after the child.” 

“ Yes, of course, I ought to have some one,” he 
replied, “ but the parish is poor, and . . .” 

“ Nobody is poor but the devil,” burst out 
Widow Adamecz, “ and he’s poor because he has 
no soul. But we have souls. And after all, your 
reverence won’t know how to dress and undress 
a child, nor how to wash it and plait its hair. And 
then she will often be hungry, and you can’t take 
her across to the schoolmaster’s each time. You 
must have some one to cook at home, your rever- 
ence. The sacristan is all very well for sweeping 
and tidying up a bit, but what does he know about 
children ?” 

“True, true; but where am I to . . .” 

“ Where ? And am I not here ? The Lord 
created me for a priest’s cook, I’m sure.” 

“ Yes, I daresay. But how am I to pay your 
wages ?” 

Widow Adamecz put her hands on her hips, 
and planted herself in front of Father Janos. 

“ Never mind about that, your honor. Leave 
it to God and to me. He will pay me. I shall 
enter your service this evening, and shall bring 
all my saucepans and things with me.” 


31 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


The priest was more and more surprised, but 
even more astonished was his friend Urszinyi 
when he came over toward evening and the priest 
related the events of the day, and told him of 
Widow Adamecz’s offer. 

“What!” he exclaimed, “ Widow Adamecz? 
That old witch ? And without payment ? Why, 
Janos, a greater miracle never yet happened. An 
inhabitant of Glogova working for payment from 
Heaven! You seem to have bewitched the 
people.” 

The priest only smiled, but his heart was full 
of gratitude. He also felt that a miracle had 
taken place ; it was all so strange, so incomprehen- 
sible. But he guessed at the cause of the change. 
The prayer he had said at the entrance to the 
church had been heard, and this was the answer. 
Yes, it really was a miracle! He had not heard 
all the stories that were spread abroad about the 
red umbrella, and he only smiled at those that 
had come to his ears. It is true he did not under- 
stand himself how the umbrella came to be where 
he had found it; he was surprised at first, but 
had not thought any more about it, and had hung 
it on a nail in his room, so that if the owner 
asked for it he could have it at once, though it 
was not really worth sixpence. 

But the day’s events were not yet done. Toward 
evening the news spread that the wife of the 


32 


The Umbrella and. St. Peter 


miller, the village nabob, bad been drowned in 
the Bjela Voda, which was very swollen from the 
amount of rain that had fallen. The unfortunate 
woman had crossed the stepping-stones in order 
to bring back her geese, which had strayed to the 
other side. She had brought back two of them, 
one under each arm, but as she was re-crossing 
to fetch the third, her foot slipped, and she fell 
into the stream. In the morning there had been 
so little water there, that a goat could have drank 
it all in half a minute, and by midday it was 
swollen to such an extent that the poor woman 
was drowned in it. They looked for her the 
whole afternoon in the cellar, in the loft, every- 
where they could think of, until in the evening 
her body was taken out of the water near Lehota. 
There some people recognized her, and a man was 
sent over on horseback to tell Mihaly Gongoly of 
the accident. All this caused great excitement 
in the village, and the people stood about in 
groups, talking of the event. 

“ Yes, God takes the rich ones too,” they said. 

Gyorgy Klincsok came running in to the priest. 

“ There will be a grand funeral the day after 
to-morrow,” he exclaimed. 

The sacristan appeared at the schoolmaster’s 
in the hope of a glass of brandy to celebrate the 
event. 

“ Collect your thoughts,” he exclaimed, “ there 


33 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


will be a grand funeral, and they will expect some 
grand verses.” 

Two days later the funeral took place, and it 
was a long time since anything so splendid had 
been seen in Glogova. Mr. Gongoly had sent for 
the priest from Lehota too, for, as he said, why 
should not his wife have two priests to read the 
burial service over her. He sent all the way to 
Besztercebanya for the coffin, and they took the 
wooden cross that was to be put at the head of 
the grave to Kopanyik to have it painted black, 
with the name and the date of her death in white 
letters. 

There were crowds of people at the funeral in 
spite of the bad weather, and just as the priest 
was starting in full canonicals, with all the little 
choir-boys in their clean surplices, it began to 
pour again; so Father Janos turned to Kvapka, 
the sacristan, and said : 

“ Run back as fast as you can and fetch the 
umbrella out of my room.” 

Kvapka turned and stared; how was he to 
know what an umbrella was? 

“ Well,” said Father Janos, “ if you like it 
better, fetch the large, round piece of red linen 
I found two days ago spread over my little sister.” 

“ Ah, now I understand !” 

The priest took shelter in a cottage until the 
fleet-footed Kvapka returned with the umbrella, 

34 


The Umbrella and St. Peter 


which his reverence, to the great admiration of 
the crowd, with one sweeping movement of his 
hand spread out in such a fashion that it looked 
like a series of bats’ wings fastened together. 
Then, taking hold of the handle, he raised it so 
as to cover his head, and walked on with stately 
step, without getting wet a bit ; for the drops fell 
angrily on the strange tent spread over him, and, 
not being able to touch his reverence, fell splash- 
ing on to the ground. The umbrella was the 
great attraction for all the peasants at the funeral, 
and they exchanged many whispered remarks 
about the (to them) strange thing. 

“ That’s what St. Peter brought,” they said. 

Only the beautiful verses the schoolmaster had 
composed for the occasion distracted their atten- 
tion for a while, and sobs broke forth as the 
various relations heard their names mentioned in 
the lines in which the dead woman was supposed 
to be taking leave of them : 

“ Good-by, good-by, my dearest friends ; Pal 
Lajko my brother, Gyorgy Klincsok my cousin,” 
etc. 

The whole of Pal Lajko’s household began to 
weep bitterly, and Mrs. Klincsok exclaimed rap- 
turously : 

“ How on earth does he manage to compose 
such beautiful lines!” 

Which exclamation inspired the schoolmaster 

35 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


with fresh courage, and, raising his voice, he 
continued haranguing the assembled friends in 
the dead woman’s name, not forgetting a single 
one, and there was not a dry eye among them. 

For some time after they had buried Mrs. 
Gongoly the grand doings at the funeral were 
still the talk of the place, and even at the funeral 
the old women had picked out pretty Anna 
Tyurek as the successor of Mrs. Gongoly, and 
felt sure it would not be long before her noted 
“mentyek” had an owner. (Every well-to-do 
Slovak peasant buys a long cloak of sheepskin 
for his wife; it is embroidered outside in bright 
colors, and inside is the long silky hair of the 
Hungarian sheep. It is only worn on Sundays 
and holidays, and is passed on from one genera- 
tion to another.) 

The mourners had hardly recovered from the 
large quantities of brandy they had imbibed in 
order to drown their sorrow, when they had to 
dig a new grave; for Janos Sranko had followed 
Mrs. Gongoly. In olden times they had been 
good friends, before Mrs. Gongoly was engaged ; 
and now it seemed as though they had arranged 
their departure from this world to take place at 
the same time. 

They found Sranko dead in his bed, the morn- 
ing after the funeral ; he had died of an apoplectic 
fit. Sranko was a well-to-do man, in fact a 

36 


The Umbrella and St. Peter 


“magna.” (The fifteen richest peasants in a Slovak 
village are called “magnas” or “magnates.”) He 
had three hundred sheep grazing in his meadows 
and several acres of ploughed land, so he ought 
to have a grand funeral too. And Mrs. Sranko 
was not idle, for she went herself to the school- 
master, and then to the priest, and said she wished 
everything to be as it had been at Mrs. Gongoly’s 
funeral. Let it cost what it might, but the 
Srankos were not less than the Gongolys. She 
wished two priests to read the funeral service, 
and four choir-boys to attend in their best black 
cassocks, the bell was to toll all the time, and 
so on, and so on. Father Janos nodded his 
head. 

“ Very well, all shall be as you wish,” he said, 
and then proceeded to reckon out what it would 
cost. 

“ That’s all right,” said Mrs. Sranko, “ but 
please, your reverence, put the red thing in too, 
and let us see how much more it will cost.” 

“ What red thing?” 

“ Why, what you held over your head at Mrs. 
Gongoly’s funeral. Oh, it was lovely !” 

The young priest could not help smiling. 

“ But that is impossible,” he said. 

Mrs. Sranko jumped up, and planted herself 
before him, with her arms crossed. 

“ And why is it impossible I should like to 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


know? My money is as good as the Gongolys’, 
isn’t it?” 

“ But, my dear Mrs. Sranko, it was raining 
then, and to-morrow we shall in all probability 
have splendid weather.” 

But it was no use arguing with the good 
woman, for she spoke the dialect of the country 
better than Father Janos did. 

“ Raining, was it?” she exclaimed. “ Well, all 
the more reason you should bring it with you 
to-morrow, your honor ; at all events it won’t get 
wet. And, after all, my poor dear husband was 
worthy of it ; he was no worse than Mrs. Gongoly. 
Every one honored him, and he did a lot for the 
Church; why, it was he who five years ago sent 
for those lovely colored candles we have on the 
altar ; they came all the way from Besztercebanya. 
And the white altar-cloth my husband’s sister 
embroidered. So you see we have a right to the 
red thing.” 

“ But I can’t make myself ridiculous by burying 
some one with an umbrella held over me when 
the sun is shining. You must give up the idea, 
Mrs. Sranko.” 

Thereupon Mrs. Sranko burst into tears. What 
had she done to be put to such shame, and to be 
refused the right to give her husband all the 
honors due to the dead, and which were a comfort 
to the living too? What would the villagers 

38 


The Umbrella and St. Peter 


say of her? They would say, “ Mrs. Sranko did 
not even give her husband a decent funeral, they 
only threw him into the grave like a beggar.” 

“ Please do it, your reverence,” she begged 
tearfully, and kept on wiping her eyes with her 
handkerchief, until one of the corners which had 
been tied in a knot came unfastened, and out fell 
a ten-florin note. Mrs. Sranko picked it up, and 
put it carefully on the table. 

“ I’ll give this over and above the other sum,” 
she said, “ only let us have all the pomp possible, 
your honor.” 

At this moment Widow Adamecz rushed in 
from the kitchen, flourishing an immense wooden 
spoon in the air. 

“ Yes, your reverence, Sranko was a good, 
pious man ; not all the gossip you hear about him 
is true. And even if it were, it would touch Mrs. 
Gongoly as much as him, may God rest her soul. 
If the holy umbrella was used at her funeral, it 
can be used at his too. If God is angry at its 
having been used for her, He will only be a little 
more angry at its being used for him ; and if He 
was not angry then, He won’t be angry now 
either.” 

“ You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Widow 
Adamecz, talking such nonsense. Don’t bother 
me any more with your superstitions. The whole 
thing is simply ridiculous.” 


39 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


But the two women were not to be put off. 

“ We know what we know,” they said, nodding 
their heads sagely, “ your honor can’t deceive us.” 

And they worried him to such an extent that 
he was obliged at last to give way, and agreed 
to bring the red umbrella to Janos Sranko’s 
funeral, but he added as an afterthought, “ That 
is, of course, if the owner does not come for it 
before then. For it is certain that some one left 
it here, and if they come for it, I shall be obliged 
to give it them.” 

“ Well,” said Widow Adamecz, “ as far as that 
goes we can sleep in peace, for the one who 
brought it only walks on our planet once in a 
thousand years.” 

Nobody appeared to claim the umbrella, and 
so the next day, though it was a lovely afternoon, 
and not a cloud was to be seen on the horizon, the 
young priest opened his umbrella, and followed 
the coffin to the grave. 

Four strong men carried the bier on which the 
coffin was placed, and as chance willed it, when 
they passed the smithy, one of the bearers stum- 
bled and fell, which so startled the one walking 
behind him, that he lost his presence of mind, the 
bier lurched to one side, and the coffin fell to the 
ground. 

It cracked, then the fastenings gave way, and 
it broke to pieces ; first the embroidered shirt was 


40 


The Umbrella and St. Peter 


visible, and then the supposed dead man himself, 
who awoke from the trance he had been in, moved 
slightly, and whispered: 

“ Where am I ?” 

Of course every one was as surprised as they 
could be, and there was plenty of running back- 
ward and forward to the smithy for blankets, 
shawls, and pillows, of which they made a bed 
in a cart that was outside waiting to be repaired. 
Into this they put the man on whom such a 
miracle had been worked, and the funeral proces- 
sion returned as a triumphant one to Sranko’s 
house. He had so far recovered on the way home 
as to ask for something to eat immediately on his 
arrival. 

They brought him a jug of milk, at which 
he shook his head. Lajko offered him a flask of 
brandy he had taken with him to cheer his droop- 
ing spirits. He smiled and accepted it. 

This ridiculous incident was the beginning of 
the umbrella legend, which spread and spread 
beyond the village, beyond the mountains, increas- 
ing in detail as it went. If a mark or impression 
were found on a rock it was said to be the print 
of St. Peters foot. If a flower of particularly 
lovely color were found growing on the meadow, 
St. Peter’s stick had touched the spot. Every- 
thing went to prove that St. Peter had been in 
Glogova lately. After all it was no common case, 


4 * 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


The only real mystery in the whole affair was 
how the umbrella had come to be spread over 
little Veronica’s basket; but that was enough to 
make the umbrella noted. And its fame spread 
far and wide, as far as the Bjela Voda flows; 
the Slovak peasants told the tale sitting round 
the fire, with various additions, according to the 
liveliness of their imagination. They imagined 
St. Peter opening the gates of Heaven, and com- 
ing out with the umbrella in his hand, in order to 
bring it down to the priest’s little sister. The 
only question they could not settle was how St. 
Peter had got down to the earth. But they 
thought he must have stood on a cloud which let 
him gently down, and set him on the top of one of 
the neighboring hills. 

Then they discussed the power the umbrella 
possessed of raising the dead to life, and so the 
legend was spread abroad. And whenever a rich 
peasant died, even in the villages miles off, Father 
Janos was sent for, with the red umbrella, to read 
the burial services. He was also sent for to sick 
persons who wished the umbrella spread over 
them while they confessed their sins. It must 
have a good effect, and either the sick person 
would recover, or if he did not do that he was at 
least sanctified. 

If a newly married couple wished to do things 
very grandly (and they generally do), they were 


42 


The Umbrella and St. Peter 


not only married at home by their own priest, but 
they made a pilgrimage to Glogova in order to 
join hands once more under the sacred umbrella. 
And that, to them, was the real ceremony. The 
bell-ringer held it over their heads, and in return 
many a piece of silver found its way into his 
pocket. And as for the priest, money and presents 
simply poured in upon him. At first he fought 
against all this superstition, but after a while 
even he began to believe that the red umbrella, 
which day by day got more faded and shabby, was 
something out of the common. Had it not ap- 
peared on the scene as though in answer to his 
prayer, and was it not the source of all his good 
fortune ? 

“ Oh, Lord !” he had prayed, “ unless Thou 
workest a miracle, how am I to bring up the 
child?” 

And lo and behold, the miracle had been 
worked ! Money, food, all the necessaries of life 
flowed from that ragged old umbrella. Its fame 
spread to higher circles too. The Bishop of 
Besztercebanya heard of it and sent for Father 
Janos and the umbrella; and after having exam- 
ined it and heard the whole story, he crossed his 
hands on his breast and exclaimed : “ Deus est 
omnipotens.” Which was equivalent to saying 
he believed in it. 

A few weeks later he went still further, and sent 

43 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


orders for the umbrella to be kept in the church, 
instead of in the priest’s room. Upon which 
Father Janos answered that in reality the um- 
brella belonged to his little sister, who was still 
a minor, so that he had no right to it, nor to give 
it away. But he was sure, as soon as Veronica 
was of age, she would make a present of it to 
the church. But the umbrella not only brought 
good fortune to the priest, who soon started a 
small farm, and in a few years built himself a new 
house, and kept a horse and trap, but it made 
a great difference in Glogova too. Every summer 
numbers of ladies came from the small watering- 
places round about, very often countesses too 
(mostly old countesses), in order to say a prayer 
under the umbrella, and for these an inn was built 
opposite the priest’s house, called the “Miraculous 
Umbrella.” In fact, Glogova increased in size 
and importance from day to day. 

In time the villagers began to feel ashamed of 
the simple wooden belfry, and had a tower built 
to the church, and hung two bells in it from 
Besztercebanya. Janos Sranko had a splendid 
statue of the Holy Family erected in front of the 
church, to commemorate his resurrection from 
the dead. The governess (for a time Father 
Janos had a governess for little Veronica) filled 
the priest’s garden with dahlias, fuchsias, and 


44 


The Umbrella and St. Peter 


other flowers which the inhabitants of Glogova 
had never yet seen. 

Everything improved and was beautified (ex- 
cept Widow Adamecz, who got uglier day by 
day), and the villagers even went so far as to 
discuss on Sunday afternoons the advisability of 
building a chapel upon the mountain St. Peter 
had been seen on, in order to make it a place of 
pilgrimage and attract even more visitors. 



The Gregorics Family 


PART II 











































































CHAPTER I. 


THE TACTLESS MEMBER OF THE FAMILY. 

Many years before our story begins, there 
lived in Besztercebanya a man of the name of 
Pal Gregorics, who was always called a tactless 
man, whereas all his life was spent in trying to 
please others. Pal Gregorics was always chasing 
Popularity, and instead of finding it came face to 
face with Criticism, a much less pleasing figure. 
He was born nine months after his father’s death, 
an act of tactlessness which gave rise to plentyof 
gossip, and much unpleasantness to his mother, 
who was a thoroughly good, honest woman. If 
he had only arrived a little earlier . . . but after 
all he could not help it. As far as the other 
Gregorics were concerned, he had better not have 
been born at all, for of course the estates were cut 
up more than they would otherwise have been. 

The child was weak and sickly, and his 
grown-up brothers always hoped for his death; 
however, he did not die, but grew up, and when 
of age took possession of his fortune, most of 


49 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


which he had inherited from his mother, who had 
died during his minority and left him h^er whole 
fortune; whereas the children of the first wife 
only had their share of the father’s fortune, which, 
however, was not to be sneered at, for old Gre- 
gorics had done well in the wine trade. In those 
days it was easier to get on in that line than it 
is now, for, in the first place, there was wine in 
the country, and in the second place there were no 
Jews. In these days there is plenty of Danube 
water in the wine-cellars, but not much juice of 
the grapes. 

Nature had blessed Pal Gregoricswith a freckly 
face and red hair, which made people quote the 
old saying, “ Red-haired people are never 
good.” 

So Pal Gregorics made up his mind to prove 
that it was untrue. All these old sayings are like 
pots in which generations have been cooking for 
ages, and Pal Gregorics intended to break one 
of them. He meant to be “ as good as a piece of 
bread, and as soft as butter, which allows itself 
to be spread equally well on white bread or black.” 
(This is a favorite phrase among the peasants, 
when describing a very good man.) 

And he was as good a man as you could wish 
to see, but what was the good of it? Some evil 
spirit always seemed to accompany him and 
induce people to misunderstand his intentions. 

50 


The Tactless Member 


The day he came back from Pest, where he 
had been completing his studies, he went into 
a tobacconist’s shop and bought some fine 
Havanas, which at once set all the tongues in 
Besztercebanya wagging. 

“ The good-for-nothing fellow smokes seven- 
penny cigars, does he? That is a nice way to 
begin. He’ll die in the workhouse. Oh, if his 
poor dead father could rise from his grave and 
see him! Why, the old man used to mix dry 
potato leaves with his tobacco to make it seem 
more, and poured the dregs of the coffee on it to 
make it burn slower.” 

Pal Gregorics heard that he had displeased the 
good townsfolk by smoking such dear cigars, and 
immediately took to short halfpenny ones. But 
this did not suit them either, and they remarked : 

“ Really, Pal Gregorics is about the meanest 
man going, he’ll be worse than his father in 
time!” 

Gregorics felt very vexed at being called mean, 
and decided to take the very next opportunity to 
prove the contrary. The opportunity presented 
itself in the form of a ball, given in aid of a hos- 
pital, and of which the Mayoress of the town 
was patroness. The programme announced that 
though the tickets were two florins each, any 
larger sum would be gratefully accepted. So Pal 
Gregorics gave twenty florins for his two-florin 


5i 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


ticket, thinking to himself “ They shan’t say I 
am mean this time.” 

Upon that the members of the committee put 
their heads together and decided that Pal Gregor- 
ics was a tactless fellow. It was the greatest 
impertinence on his part to outbid the Mayor, and 
a baron to boot! Baron Radvanszky had given 
ten florins for his ticket, and Gregorics throws 
down twenty. Why, it was an insult! The son 
of a wine merchant! What things do happen in 
the nineteenth century, to be sure! Whatever 
Pal Gregorics did was wrong; if he quarrelled 
with some one and would not give in, they said 
he was a brawler; and if he gave in, he was a 
coward. 

Though he had studied law, he did nothing 
particular at first, only drove to his estate a mile 
or two out of the town and spent a few hours 
shooting; or he went for a few days to Vienna, 
where he had a house inherited from his mother ; 
and the rest of his time he spent in Beszterce- 
banya. 

“ Pal Gregorics,” they said, “ is a lazy fellow ; 
he does nothing useful from one year’s end to 
the other. Why are such useless creatures allowed 
to live?” 

Pal heard this too, and quite agreed with them 
that he ought to get some work to do, and not 
waste his life as he was doing. Of course, every 
52 


The Tactless Member 


one should earn the bread they eat. So he looked 
for some employment in the town. That was 
enough to set all the tongues wagging again. 
What? Gregorics wanted work in the town? 
Was he not ashamed of himself, trying to take 
the bread out of poor men’s mouths, when he had 
plenty of cake for himself? Let him leave the 
small amount of employment there was in the 
town to those who really needed it. Gregorics 
quite understood the force of this argument, and 
gave up his idea. He now turned his thoughts 
toward marriage, and determined to start a fam- 
ily; after all that was as good an occupation as 
any other. 

So he began to frequent various houses where 
there were pretty girls to be met, and where he, 
being a good match, was well received; but his 
step-brothers, who were always in hopes that the 
delicate little man would not live long, did their 
best to upset his plans in this case too. So Pal 
Gregorics got so many refusals one after the 
other, that he was soon renowned in the whole 
neighborhood. Later on he could have found 
many who would have been glad of an offer from 
him, but they were ashamed to let him see it. 
After all, how could they marry a man whom so 
many girls had refused? 

On the eve of St. Andrew’s any amount of 
lead was melted by the young girls of the town, 


S3 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


but not one of them saw in the hardened mass 
the form of Gregorics. In fact, none of the 
young girls wanted to marry him. What they 
looked for was romance, not money. Perhaps 
some old maid would have jumped at his offer, 
but between the young maids and the old maids 
there is a great difference — they belong to two 
different worlds. The young girls were told that 
Pal Gregorics spat blood, and of course, the 
moment they heard that, they would have nothing 
more to do with him, so that at his next visit 
their hearts would beat loudly, but not in the 
same way they had done last time he drove up in 
his coach and four. Poor Gregorics! What 
a pity ! The horses outside may paw the ground, 
and toss their manes as much as they like, what 
difference does it make? Pal Gregorics spits 
blood! Oh, you silly little Marys and Carolines. 
Of course Pal Gregorics is an ugly, sickly man, 
but think how rich he is; and after all, he only 
spits his own blood. So what can it matter 
to you? 

Believe me, Rosalia, who is ten years older 
than you, would not be such a silly little goose, if 
she had your chances, for she is a philosopher, 
and if she were to be told that Pal Gregorics spits 
blood she would only think to herself, “ What an 
interesting man !” And aloud she would say, “ I 
will nurse him.” And deep down in her mind 


54 


The Tactless Member 


where she keeps the ideas that cannot be put into 
words, which, in fact, are hardly even thoughts 
as yet, she would find these words, “ If Gregorics 
spits blood already, he won’t last so very long.” 

You silly little girls, you know nothing of life 
as yet; your mothers have put you into long 
dresses, but your minds have not grown in pro- 
portion. Don’t be angry with me for speaking 
so plainly, but it is my duty to show my readers 
why Pal Gregorics did not find a wife among you. 
The reason is a simple one. The open rose is not 
perfectly pure; bees have bathed in its chalice, 
insects have slept in it. But in the heart of an 
opening bud, not a speck of dust is to be found. 

That is why Pal Gregorics was refused by so 
many young girls, and by degrees he began to 
see that they were right (for, as I said before, he 
was a good, simple man), marriage was not for 
him, as he spat blood ; for after all, blood is one of 
the necessaries of life. When he had once made 
up his mind not to marry, he troubled his head no 
more about the girls, but turned his attention 
to the young married women. He had beautiful 
bouquets sent from Vienna for Mrs. Vozary, and 
one fine evening he let five hundred nightingales 
loose in Mrs. Muskulyi’s garden. He had the 
greatest difficulty in getting so many together, 
but a bird-fancier in Transylvania had undertaken 
to send them to him. The beautiful young woman, 


55 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


as she turned on her pillows, was surprised to 
hear how delightfully the birds were singing in 
her garden that night. 

He had no success with the young married 
women either, and was beginning to get thor- 
oughly sick of life, when the war broke out. They 
would not take him for a soldier either, they said 
he was too small and thin, he would not be able 
to stand the fatigues of war. But he wanted to 
do something at any cost. 

The recruiting sergeant, who was an old friend 
of his, gave him the following advice : 

“ I don’t mind taking you if you particularly 
wish to work with us, but you must look out for 
some occupation with no danger attached to it. 
The campaign is fatiguing ; we’ll give you some- 
thing in the writing business.’ 

Gregorics was wounded in his pride. 

“ I intend accepting only the most dangerous 
employment,” he said ; “ now which do you con- 
sider the most dangerous ?” 

“ Why, that of a spy,” was the answer. 

“ Then I will be a spy.” 

And he kept his word. He dressed himself 
as one of those vagrants of whom so many were 
seen at that time, and went from one camp to the 
other, carrying information and letters. Old 
soldiers remember and still talk of the little old 
man with the red umbrella, who always managed 

56 


The Tactless Member 


to pass through the enemy’s camp, his gaze as 
vacant as though he were unable to count up to 
ten. With his thin, bird-like face, his ragged 
trousers, his battered top-hat, and his red um- 
brella, he was seen everywhere. If you once saw 
him it was not easy to forget him, and there was 
no one who did not see him, though few guessed 
at his business. Some one once wrote about him : 
“ The little man with the red umbrella is the devil 
himself, but he belongs to the better side of the 
family.” 

In the peaceful time that succeeded the war, he 
returned to Besztercebanya, and became a misan- 
thrope. He never moved out of his ugly, old 
stone house, and thought no more of making 
a position for himself, nor of marrying. And like 
most old bachelors he fell in love with his cook. 
His theory now was to simplify matters. He 
needed a woman to cook for him and to wait on 
him, and he needed a woman to love ; that means 
two women in the house. Why should he not 
simplify matters and make those two women one ? 
Anna Wibra was a big stout woman, somewhere 
from the neighborhood of Detvar. She was a 
rather good-looking woman, and used to sing 
very prettily when washing up the plates and 
dishes in the evening. She had such a nice soft 
voice that her master once called her into his 
sitting-room, and made her sit down on one of 


57 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


the leather-covered chairs. She had never sat so 
comfortably in her life before. 

“ I like your voice, Anna ; sing me something 
here, so that I can hear you better.” 

So Anna started a very melancholy sort of 
song, “ The Recruit’s Letter,” in which he com- 
plains to the girl he loves of all the hardships of 
war. 

Gregorics was quite softened by the music, and 
three times he exclaimed : “ What a wonderful 
voice!” And he kept moving nearer and nearer 
to Anna, till all at once he began to stroke her 
cheek. At this she turned scarlet, and jumped 
up from her chair, pushing him away from her. 

“ That’s not in my contract, sir !” she ex- 
claimed. 

Gregorics blushed too. 

“ Don’t be silly, Anna,” he said. 

But Anna tossed her head and walked to the 
door. 

“ Don’t run away, you stupid, I shan’t eat you.” 

But Anna would not listen, and took refuge 
in her kitchen, from which she was not to be 
coaxed again that evening. 

The next day she gave notice to leave, but her 
master pacified her by the gift of a golden ring, 
and a promise never to lay a finger on her again. 
He told her he could not let her go, for he would 
never get any one to cook as well as she did. 

58 


The Tactless Member 


Anna was pleased with the praise and with the 
ring, and stayed, on condition that he kept his 
promise. He did keep it for a time, and then 
forgot it, and Anna was again on the point of 
leaving. But Gregorics pacified her this time 
with a necklace of corals with a golden clasp, like 
the Baronesses Radvanszky wore at church. The 
necklace suited her so well, that she no longer 
thought of forbidding her master to touch her. 
He was rich enough, let him buy her a few pretty 
things. 

In fact, the same afternoon she paid a visit to 
the old woman who kept a grocer’s shop next 
door, and asked whether it would hurt very much 
to have her ears pierced. The old woman laughed. 

“ Oh, you silly creature,” she said, “ you surely 
don’t want to wear earrings? Anna, Anna, you 
have bad thoughts in your head.” 

Anna protested and then banged the door 
behind her, so that the bell fastened to it went 
on ringing for some moments. 

Of course she wanted some earrings, why 
should she not have some? God had given her 
ears the same as to all those grand ladies she saw 
at church. And before the day was over she had 
found out that it would hardly hurt her at all to 
have her ears pierced. 

Yes, she wanted to have some earrings, and 
now she did all she could to bring Gregorics into 


59 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


temptation. She dressed herself neatly, wore 
a red ribbon in her hair, in fact, made herself 
thoroughly irresistible. Gregorics may have been 
wily enough to be a spy for a whole Russian and 
Austrian army, but a woman, however simple, 
was far deeper than he. 

Next Sunday she went to church with earrings 
in her ears, much to the amusement of the lads 
and lasses of the town, who had long ago dubbed 
her “ the Grenadier.” And in a few weeks’ time 
the whole town was full of gossip about Gregorics 
and his cook, and all sorts of tales were told, some 
of them supremely ridiculous. His step-brothers 
would not believe it. 

“ A Gregorics and a servant ! Such a thing 
was never heard of before!” 

The neighbors tried to pacify them by saying 
there was nothing strange in the fact, on the 
contrary it was quite natural. Pal Gregorics had 
never done things correctly all his life. How 
much was true and how much false is not known, 
but the gossip died away by degrees, only to 
awaken again some years later, when a small boy 
was seen playing about with a pet lamb in Pal 
Gregorics’s courtyard. Who was the child? 
Where did he come from? Gregorics himself 
was often seen playing with him. And people, 
who sometimes out of curiosity looked through 
the keyhole of the great wooden gates, saw 

60 


The Tactless Member 


Gregorics, with red ribbons tied round his waist 
for reins, playing at horses with the child, who 
with a whip in his hand kept shouting, “ Gee-up, 
Raro.” And the silly old fellow would kick and 
stamp and plunge, and even race round the court- 
yard. And now he was rarely seen limping 
through the town in his shabby clothes, to which 
he had become accustomed when he was a spy, 
and under his arm his red umbrella; he always 
had it with him, in fine or wet weather, and never 
left it in the hall when he paid a visit, but took 
it into the room with him, and kept it constantly 
in his hand. Sometimes the lady of the house 
asked if he would not put it down. 

“ No, no,” he would answer, “ I am so used 
to having it in my hand that I feel quite lost 
without it. It is as though one of my ribs were 
missing, upon my word it is !” 

There was a good deal of talk about this um- 
brella. Why was he so attached to it? It was 
incomprehensible. Supposing it contained some- 
thing important? Somebody once said (I think 
it was Istvan Pazar who had served in the war), 
that the umbrella contained all sorts of notes, 
telegrams, and papers written in his spying days, 
and that they were in the handle of the umbrella, 
which was hollow. Well, perhaps it was true. 

The other members of the Gregorics family 
looked with little favor on the small boy in the 

61 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


Gregorics’s household, and never rested till they 
had looked through all the baptismal registers 
they could lay hands on. At last they came upon 
the entry they wanted, “ Gyorgy Wibra, illegiti- 
mate; mother, Anna Wibra.” 

He was a pretty little fellow, so full of life and 
spirits that every one took a fancy to him. 


CHAPTER II. 


DUBIOUS SIGNS. 

Little Gyuri Wibra grew to be a fine lad, 
strong and broad chested. Pal Gregorics was 
always saying, “ Where on earth does he take that 
chest from? ,, 

He was so narrow-chested himself that he 
always gazed with admiration at the boy’s sturdy 
frame, and was so taken up in the contemplation 
of it, that he hardly interested himself in the 
child’s studies. And he was a clever boy too. An 
old pensioned professor, Marton Kupeczky, gave 
him lessons every day, and was full of his praises. 

“ There’s plenty in him, sir,” he used to say. 
“ He’ll be a great man, sir. What will you bet, 
sir?” 

Gregorics was always delighted, for he loved 
the boy, though he never showed it. On these 
occasions he would smile and answer : 

“ I’ll bet you a cigar, and we’ll consider I’ve 
lost it.” 

And then he would offer the old professor, who 

63 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


was very fond of betting, one of his choicest 
cigars. 

“ I never had such a clever pupil before,” the 
old professor used to say. “ I have had to teach 
very ordinary minds all my life, and have wasted 
my talents on them. A sad thing to say, sir. I 
feel like that nugget of gold which was lost at the 
Mint. You know the tale, sir? What, you have 
never heard it? Why, a large nugget of gold 
was once lost at the Mint. It was searched for 
everywhere, but could not be found. Well, after 
a long examination of all the clerks, it turned 
out that the gold had been melted by accident with 
the copper for the kreutzers. You understand 
me, sir? I have been pouring my soul into two 
or three generations of fools, but, thank goodness, 
I have at last found a worthy recipient for my 
knowledge. Of course, you understand me, sir ?” 

But Pal Gregorics needed no spurring on in 
this case; he had fixed intentions as far as the 
boy was concerned, and folks were not far wrong 
when they (mostly in order to vex the other 
Gregorics) prophesied the end would be that 
Gregorics would marry Anna Wibra, and adopt 
her boy. Kupeczky himself often said : 

“ Yes, that will be the end of it. Who will bet 
with me?” 

It would have been the end, and the correct 
way too, for Gregorics was fond enough of the 

64 


Dubious Signs 


boy to do a correct thing for once in a way. But 
two things happened to prevent the carrying out 
of this plan. First of all Anna fell from a ladder 
and broke her leg, so that she limped all her life 
after, and who wants a lame wife ? 

The second thing was, that little Gyuri was 
taken ill very suddenly. He turned blue in the 
face and was in convulsions; they thought he 
would die. Gregorics fell on his knees by the 
side of the bed of the sick child, kissed his face 
and cold little hands, and asked despairingly: 

“ What is the matter, my boy? Tell me what 
hurts you.” , 

“ I don’t know, uncle,” moaned the child. 

At that moment Gregorics suffered every pain 
the child felt, and his heart seemed breaking. He 
seized hold of the doctor’s hand, and his agony 
pressed these words from him : 

“ Doctor, save the child, and I’ll give you a bag 
full of gold.” 

The doctor saved him, and got the bag of 
money too, as Gregorics had promised in that 
hour of danger. (Of course the doctor did not 
choose the bag, Gregorics had one made on pur- 
pose.) 

The doctor cured the boy, but made Gregorics 
ill, for he instilled suspicion into his mind by 
swearing that the boy’s illness was the result 
of poison. Nothing could have upset Gregorics 

65 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


as much as this declaration. How could it have 
happened? Had he eaten any poisonous mush- 
rooms? Gyuri shook his head. Well, what could 
he have eaten? 

The mother racked her brains to find out what 
could have been the cause. Perhaps this, perhaps 
that, perhaps the vinegar was bad, or the copper 
saucepans had not been quite clean? Gregorics 
shook his head sorrowfully. 

“ Don't talk nonsense, Anna," he said. 

Deep down in his heart was a thought which 
he was afraid to put into words, but which en- 
tirely spoiled his life for him, and robbed him of 
sleep and appetite. He had thought of his step- 
brothers; they had something to do with it, he 
was sure. There was an end to all his plans for 
adopting the boy, giving him his own name, and 
leaving him his fortune. No, no, it would cost 
Gyuri his life; they would kill him if he gave 
them the chance. But he did not intend to give 
them the chance. He trembled for the child, and 
hardly dared to love him. He started a new line 
of conduct, a very mad one too. He ordered the 
boy to address him as “ sir" for the future, and 
forbade him to love him. 

“ It was only a bit of fun, you know, my 
allowing you to call me ‘ uncle.' Do you under- 
stand ?" 

Tears stood in the boy's eyes, and seeing them 

66 


Dubious Signs 


old Gregorics bent down and kissed them away; 
and his voice was very sad as he said : 

“ Don’t tell any one I kissed you, or you will 
be in great danger.” 

Precaution now became his mania. He took 
Kupeczky into his house, and the old professor 
had to be with the boy day and night, and taste 
every bit of food he was to eat. If Gyuri went 
outside the gates, he was first stripped of his 
velvet suit and patent leather shoes, and dressed 
in a ragged old suit kept on purpose, and allowed 
to run barefoot. Let people ask in the streets, 
“ Who is that little scarecrow ?” And let those 
who knew answer, “ Oh, that is Gregorics’s 
cook’s child.” 

And, in order thoroughly to deceive his rela- 
tions, he undertook to educate one of his step- 
sister’s boys ; took him up to Vienna and put him 
in the Terezianum, and kept him there in grand 
style with the sons of counts and barons. To his 
other nephews and nieces he sent lots of presents, 
so that the Gregorics family, who had never liked 
the younger brother, came at last to the conclusion 
that he was not such a bad fellow after all, only 
something of a fool. 

Little Gyuri himself was sent away to school 
after a time ; to Kolozsvar and then to Szeged, as 
far away as possible, so as to be out of reach of 
the family. At these times Kupeczky secretly 

67 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


disappeared from the town too, though he might 
as well have been accompanied by a drum and 
fife band, for not a soul would have asked where 
he was going. 

Doubtless there was a lot of exaggeration in 
all this secrecy and precaution, but exaggeration 
had a large share in Gregorics’s character. If he 
undertook something very difficult he was more 
adventurous than the devil himself, and once his 
fear was overcome, he saw hope in every corner. 
His love for the child and his fear were both 
exaggerated, but he could not help it. 

While the boy was pursuing his studies with 
success, the little man with the red umbrella was 
placing his money in landed estate. He said he 
had bought a large estate in Bohemia, and in 
order to pay for it had been obliged to sell his 
house in Vienna. Not long after he had built 
a sugar factory on the estate, upon which he 
began to look out for a purchaser for his Privorec 
estates. He soon found one in the person of 
a rich merchant from Kassa. There was some- 
thing strange and mysterious in the fact of the 
little man making so many changes in his old age. 
One day he had his house in Besztercebanya 
transferred to Anna Wibra’s name. And the little 
man was livelier and more contented than he had 
ever been in his life before. He began to pay 
visits again, interested himself in things and 

68 


Dubious Signs 


events, chattered and made himself agreeable to 
every one, dined with all his relations in turn, 
throwing out allusions and hints, such as, “ After 
all, I can’t take my money with me into the next 
world,” and so on. He visited all the ladies who 
had refused him years ago, and very often went 
off by train, with his red umbrella under his arm, 
and stayed away for months and weeks at a time. 
No one troubled about him, every one said: 

“ I suppose the old fellow has gone to look 
after his property.” 

He never spoke much about his Bohemian 
estates, though his step-brothers were much inter- 
ested in them. They both offered in turns to 
go there with him, for they had never been in 
Bohemia; but Gregorics always had an answer 
ready, and to tell the truth he did not seem to 
trouble himself much about the whole affair. 
Which was not to be wondered at, for he had no 
more possessions in Bohemia than the dirt and 
dust he brought home in his clothes from Carls- 
bad, where he spent a summer doing the cure. 

The whole story was only trumped up to put 
his relations off the scent, whereas the truth was 
that he had turned all he had into money, and 
deposited it in a bank in order to be able to give 
it to the boy. Gyuri’s inheritance would be a draft 
on a bank, a bit of paper which no one would see, 
which he could keep in his waistcoat pocket, and 

69 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


yet be a very rich man. It was well and carefully 
thought out. So he did not really go to his 
estates, but simply to the town where Gyuri was 
studying with his old professor. 

Those were his happiest times, the only rays 
of light in his lonely life ; weeks in which he could 
pet the boy to his heart’s content. Gyuri was 
a favorite at school, always the first in his class, 
and a model of good behavior. 

The old man used to stay for weeks in Szeged 
and enjoy the boy’s society. They were often 
seen walking arm in arm on the banks of the 
Tisza, and when they andKupeczky talked Slovak 
together, every one turned at the sound of the 
strange language, wondering which of the many 
it was that had been invented at the Tower of 
Babel. 

When the last lesson was over, Gregorics was 
waiting at the gate, and the delighted boy would 
run and join him — though his comrades, who, 
one would have thought, would have had enough 
to occupy their thoughts elsewhere, teased him 
about the old man. They swore he was the devil 
in propria persona, that he did Gyuri Wibra’s 
exercises for him, and that he had a talisman 
which caused him to know his lessons well. It 
was easy to be the first in his class at that rate. 
There were even some silly enough to declare 
the old gentleman had a cloven foot, if you could 

70 


Dubious Signs 


only manage to see him with his boots off. The 
old red umbrella, too, which he always had with 
him, they thought must be a talisman, something 
after the style of Aladdin’s lamp. Pista Parac- 
sanyi, the best classical verse writer, made up 
some lines on the red umbrella ; which were soon 
learnt by most of the boys, and spouted on every 
possible occasion, in order to annoy the “ head 
boy.” But the poet had his reward in the form 
of a black eye and a bleeding nose, bestowed upon 
him by Gyuri Wibra, who, however, began to be 
vexed himself at the sight of the red umbrella, 
which made his old friend seem ridiculous in the 
eyes of his schoolfellows, and one day he broached 
the subject to the old gentleman. 

“ You might really buy a new umbrella, uncle.” 

The old gentleman smiled. 

“ What, you don’t like my umbrella ?” 

“ You only get laughed at, and the boys have 
even made verses about it.” 

“ Well, my boy, tell your schoolfellows that 
* all that glitters is not gold/ as they may have 
heard ; but tell them, too, that very often things 
that do not glitter may be gold. You will under- 
stand that later on when you are grown up.” 

He thought for a bit, idly making holes in the 
sand with the umbrella, and then added : 

“ When the umbrella is yours.” 

Gyuri made a wry face. 

7 1 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


“ Thank you, uncle, but I hope you don’t mean 
to give it me on my birthday instead of the pony 
you promised me?” 

And he laughed heartily, upon which the old 
gentleman began to laugh too, contentedly strok- 
ing his mustache, consisting of half a dozen hairs. 
There was something strange in his laugh, as 
though he had laughed inward to his own soul. 

“ No, no, you shall have your pony. But I 
assure you that the umbrella will once belong to 
you, and you will find it very useful to protect 
you from the wind and clouds.” 

Gyuri thought this great nonsense. Such old 
gentlemen always attached themselves so to their 
belongings, and thought such a lot of them. Why, 
one of his professors had a penholder he had used 
for forty years ! 

One episode in connection with the umbrella 
remained fixed in Gyuri’s memory ever after. 
One day they rowed out to the “ Yellow,” as 
they call a small island situated just where the 
Maros and the Tisza met, and where the fisher- 
men of Szeged cook their far-famed “ fish with 
paprika” (a kind of cayenne grown in Hungary, 
and much used in the national dishes). We read 
in Marton’s famous cookery book that “ fish with 
paprika” must only be boiled in Tisza water, and 
the same book says that a woman cannot prepare 
the dish properly. 


72 


Dubious Signs 


Well, as I said before, the three of them rowed 
out to the “ Yellow.” As they were landing they 
struck against a sand heap, and Gregorics, who 
was in the act of rising from his seat, stumbled 
and lost his balance, and in trying to save himself 
from falling dropped his umbrella into the water, 
and the current carried it away with it. 

“ My umbrella, save it !” shouted Gregorics, 
who had turned as white as a sheet, and in whose 
eyes they read despair. The two boatmen smiled, 
and the elder one, slowly removing his pipe from 
his mouth, remarked laconically: 

“ No great loss that, sir; it was only fit to put 
in the hands of a scarecrow.” 

“ One hundred florins to the one who brings 
it me back,” groaned the old gentleman. 

The boatmen, astonished, gazed at one another, 
then the younger man began to pull off his boots. 

“ Are you joking, sir, or do you mean it?” 

“ Here are the hundred florins,” said Gregorics, 
taking a bank-note from his pocket-book. 

The young man, a fine specimen of a Szeged 
fisherman, turned to Kupeczky. 

“ Is the old chap mad ?” he asked in his lacka- 
daisical way, while the umbrella quietly floated 
down the stream. 

“ Oh dear no,” answered Kupeczky, who, how- 
ever, was himself surprised at Gregorics’s strange 
behavior. 


73 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


“ It’s not worth it, domine spectabilis, ,, he 
added, turning to the old gentleman. 

“ Quick, quick !” gasped Gregorics. 

Another doubt had arisen in the boatman’s 
mind. 

“ Is the bank-note a real one, sir ?” he asked. 

“ Of course it is. Make haste !” 

The man, who had by this time taken off both 
his boots and his jacket, now sprang into the 
water like a frog, and began to swim after 
the umbrella, the old boatman shouting after 
him : 

“ You’re a fool, Janko; come back, don’t exert 
yourself for nothing.” 

Gregorics, afraid the warning would take 
effect, flew at the old man and seized hold of 
his tie. 

“ Hold your tongue or I’ll murder you. Do 
you want to ruin me?” 

“ Well, what would that matter? Do you 
want to throttle me? Leave go of my neck- 
tie.” 

“ Well, let the boy go after my umbrella.” 

“ After all, what is the hen good for if not 
to look after the chickens?” muttered the old 
boatman. “ The current just here is very strong, 
and he won’t be able to reach the umbrella. And 
what’s the good of it, when it will come back of 
itself when the tide turns in half an hour’s time, 

74 


Dubious Signs 


to the other side of the ‘ Yellow/ In half an 
hour the fishermen will spread their nets, and the 
gentleman’s umbrella will be sure to be caught 
in them; even if a big fish swallows it we can 
cut it open.” 

And as the old fisherman had said, so it came 
to pass; the umbrella was caught in one of the 
fishing nets, and great was the joy of old Gregor- 
ics when he once more held his treasure in his 
hand. He willingly paid the young fisherman 
the promised one hundred florins, though it was 
not really he who had brought the umbrella back ; 
and in addition he rewarded the fishermen hand- 
somely, who, the next day, spread the tale through 
the whole town of the old madman, who had 
given one hundred florins for the recovery of an 
old torn red umbrella. They had never before 
caught such a big fish in the Tisza. 

“ Perhaps the handle of the umbrella was of 
gold?” 

“ Not a bit of it; it was only of wood.” 

“ Perhaps the linen was particularly fine?” 

“ Rubbish ! Is there any linen in the world 
worth one hundred florins? It was plain red 
linen, and even that was torn and ragged.” 

“ Then you have not told us the tale prop- 
erly.” 

“ I’ve told you the whole truth.” 

Kupeczky remarked to Gyuri: 

75 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


“ I would not mind betting the old gentleman 
has a tile loose.” 

"A strange man, but a good one,” answered 
Gyuri. “ Who knows what memories are at- 
tached to that umbrella !” 


CHAPTER III. 


PAL GREGORICS’S DEATH AND WILL. 

No signification was attached to the above- 
mentioned incident till years after, when every 
one had forgotten all about it, Gyuri included. 
As for Kupeczky, he could not remember it, for 
as soon as the news came from Besztercebanya 
that old Gregorics was dead, he took to his bed 
and never rose from it again. 

“ I am dying, Gyuri,” he said to his sobbing 
pupil, “ I feel it. It was only Gregorics kept me 
alive, or rather I kept myself alive for his sake. 
But now I’m done for. I don’t know if he has 
provided for your future, my poor boy, but it’s 
all over with me, I’m dying, I wouldn’t mind 
betting it.” 

And he would have won his bet too. Gyuri 
went home for Gregorics’s funeral, and a week 
later the landlady sent word that the old professor 
was dead, and he was to send money for the 
funeral. 

But what was Kupeczky’s death to that of 

77 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


Gregorics? The poor old fellow was quite right 
to take his departure, for no one wanted him, no 
one took any notice of him. He slipped quietly 
into the next world, just as one ought to do; even 
during his life he caused no disturbance; he was 
here, he went, and there was an end of it. But 
Pal Gregorics went to work in quite a different 
style. He was taken ill with cramp on the Thurs- 
day in Ploly Week, and went to bed in great pain. 
After a time the cramp ceased, but left him very 
weak, and he fell asleep toward evening. Some 
hours after he opened his eyes and said: 

“ Anna, bring me my umbrella, and put it here, 
near my bed. That’s it! Now I feel better!” 

He turned over and went to sleep again, but 
soon woke up with a start. 

“ Anna,” he said, “ I have had a fearful dream. 
I thought I was a horse, and was being taken to 
a fair to be sold. My step-brothers and nephews 
appeared on the scene, and began to bid for me, 
and I stood trembling there, wondering which of 
them I was to belong to. My brother Boldizsar 
pulled open my mouth, examined my teeth, and 
then said, ‘ He is not worth anything, we could 
only get five florins for his skin.’ As he was 
speaking, up came a man with a scythe. He poked 
me in the ribs (it hurts me still), and exclaimed, 
‘ The horse is mine, I’ll buy it.’ I turned and 
looked at him, and was horrified to see it was 

78 


Pal Gregorics’s Death and Will 


Death himself. ‘ But I will not give the halter 
with the horse,’ said my owner. ‘ It does not 
matter,’ answered the man with the scythe, * I 
can get one from the shop round the corner ; wait 
a minute, I’ll be back directly.’ And then I awoke. 
Oh, it was dreadful!” 

His red hair stood on end, and beads of per- 
spiration rolled down his face, which Anna wiped 
with a handkerchief. 

“ Nonsense,” she said, “ you must not believe 
in dreams; they do not come from Heaven, but 
from indigestion.” 

“ No, no,” said the sick man, “ I’m going, I 
feel it. My time will be up when they bring the 
halter. Don’t waste words trying to console me, 
but bring me pen and paper, I want to send 
a telegram to the boy; he must come home at 
once. I’ll wait for his arrival, yes, I’ll wait till 
then.” 

They brought a table to his bed, and he wrote 
the following words : 

“ Come at once, uncle is dying and wants to 
give you something. — Mother.” 

“ Send the servant with this at once.” 

He was very restless while the man was away, 
and asked three times if he had returned. At 
length he came back, but with bad news; the 
telegraph office was closed for the night. 

“ Well, it does not matter,” said Anna, “ we 


79 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


will send it in the morning. The master is not 
really so bad, it is half imagination ; but he is so 
nervous we must not excite him, so go in and tell 
him the telegram is sent.” 

He was quieter after that, and began to reckon 
at what time the boy would arrive, and decided 
he might be there by the afternoon of the sec- 
ond day. 

He slept quietly all night, and got up the next 
morning very pale and weak, but went about 
putting things straight and turning out drawers. 

“ It is unnecessary to send the telegram,” 
thought Anna to herself. “ He seems nearly 
himself again, and will be all right in a day 
or two.” 

The whole day he pottered about, and in the 
afternoon shut himself up in his study and drank 
a small bottle of Tokay wine, and wrote a great 
deal. Anna only went in once to see if he wanted 
anything. No, he wanted nothing. 

“ Have you any pain?” 

“ My side hurts me, just where the man with 
the scythe touched me. There is something wrong 
inside.” 

“ Does it hurt very much ?” 

“ Yes, very much!” 

“ Shall I send for a doctor?” 

“ No.” 

In the evening he sent for his lawyer, Janos 
80 


Pal Gregorics’s Death and Will 


Sztolarik. He was quite lively when he came, 
made him sit down, and sent for another bottle 
of Tokay. 

“ The February vintage, Anna,” he called after 
her. 

The wine had been left him by his father, and 
dated from the year when there had been two 
vintages in Tokay in twelve months, one in 
February, and one in October. Only kings can 
drink the like of it. On account of the mildness 
of the winter the vines had been left uncovered, 
had flowered and borne fruit, so that in February 
they were able to have a vintage, and you can 
imagine what a flavor those grapes had. There 
was never anything like it before nor after. Old 
Gregorics’s father used to call it the “ Life-giver,” 
and often said: 

“ If a man intending to commit suicide were 
to drink a thimbleful of it beforehand, he would, 
if unmarried, go and look up a ‘ best man/ or, if 
married, would go and sue for a divorce ; but kill 
himself he would not.” 

The two friends drank to each other's health, 
and Gregorics smacked his lips. 

“ It's devilish good,” he said. 

Then he gave the lawyer a sealed packet. 

“ In that you will find my will,” he said. “ I 
sent for you in order to give it you.” 

He rubbed his hands and smiled. 


81 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


“ There will be some surprises in that.” 

“ Why are you in such a hurry with it ? There 
is plenty of time,” said Sztolarik, taking the 
packet. 

Gregorics smiled. 

“ I know more about that than you, Sztolarik. 
But take a drop more, and don’t let us talk of 
death. And now I’ll tell you how my father got 
this wine. Well, he was a very sly customer, and 
if he couldn’t get a thing by fair means, he got 
it by foul, and I have inherited some of his slyness 
from him. But mine is not the genuine article; 
however, that does not matter. In Zemplin there 
lived a very, very rich man, a count, and an ass 
into the bargain; at least he was a good-hearted 
man, and liked to give pleasure to others, thus 
proving that he was an ass. My father used to 
buy his wine of him, and if they had struck 
a good bargain the count used to give him a glass 
of this nectar. Being an assiduous wine merchant, 
of course my father was always worrying him 
to sell him some of the wine, but the count would 
not hear of it, and said, ‘ The Emperor Ferdinand 
has not enough money to buy it!’ Well, once 
when they were drinking a small glass of the 
‘ Life-giver,’ my father began sighing deeply : ‘ If 
my poor wife could only drink a thimbleful of this 
every day for two months, I am sure she would 
get quite well again.’ Upon which the count’s 

82 ‘ 


Pal Gregorics’s Death and Will 


heart softened, and he called up his major-domo 
and said : ‘Fill Mr. Gregorics’s cask with the 
“ Life-giver.” ’ A few days later several visitors 
arrived at the castle, and the count ordered some 
of the wine to be brought. ‘ There is none left, 
sir/ said the butler. ‘ Why, what has become of 
it?’ asked the count. ‘ Mr. Gregorics took it with 
him, there was not even enough to fill his cask!’ 
It was true, for my father had ordered an enor- 
mous cask of Mr. Pivak (old Pivak is still alive 
and remembers the whole story), took the cask 
in a cart to Zemplin, and, after filling it with the 
wine, brought it home. Not bad, was it? Drink 
another glass before you go, Sztolarik.” 

When the lawyer had gone, Gregorics called 
his man-servant in. 

“ Go at once to the ironmonger’s and buy a 
large caldron ; then find me two masons and bring 
them here; but don’t speak to a soul about it.” 

Now that was Matyko’s weak point, but if he 
had not been told to hold his tongue he might 
have managed to do so later on, when the oppor- 
tunity for speaking came. 

“ Off you go, and mind you are back in double 
quick time!” 

Before dark the masons had arrived, and the 
caldron too. Gregorics took the two men into his 
room, and carefully shut the door. 

“ Can you keep silence?” he asked. 

83 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


The masons looked at each other surprised, and 
the elder one answered. 

“ Why, of course we can keep silence, that is 
the first thing a man does on his arrival in this 
world.” 

“ Yes, until he has learnt to talk,” answered 
Gregorics. 

“ And even afterward you can make the trial 
if it is worth your while,” said the younger man 
slyly. 

“ It will be worth your while, for you shall 
have fifty florins each if you will make a hole in 
a wall large enough to put this caldron in, and 
then close it again so that no one can see where 
it was put.” 

“ Is that all?” 

“ That is all. But besides that you will receive 
fifty florins each from the owner of this house 
every year, as long as you keep silence.” 

The masons again exchanged glances, and the 
elder said: 

“ We will do it. Where is it to be done?” 

“ I will show you.” 

Gregorics took down a rusty key from a nail, 
and went out with the men into the courtyard. 

“ Now follow me,” he said, and led them 
through the garden to an orchard, in which was 
a small house built of stone. The most delicious 
apples grew here, and that had induced old 

8 4 


Pal Gregorics’ s Death and Will 


Gregorics to buy the orchard and house from the 
widow of the clergyman; he had made a present 
of both to little Gyuri, and it was entered in his 
name. When the boy was at home he used to 
study there with Kupeczky, but since he left it had 
been quite deserted. 

Gregorics led the masons to this little house, 
and showed them the wall in which he wished an 
opening made large enough to receive the caldron, 
and told them when they were ready to come and 
tell him, as he wished to be present when they 
walled it in. By midnight the hole was ready, 
and the masons came and tapped at the window. 
Gregorics let them in, and they saw the caldron 
in the middle of the room. The top was covered 
with sawdust, so that they could not see what 
was in it, but it was so heavy the two masons 
could hardly carry it. Gregorics followed them 
step for step, and did not move until they had 
built up the wall again. 

“ If you have it whitewashed to-morrow, sir, 
no one will find the place.” 

“ I am quite satisfied with the work,” said 
Gregorics. “ Here is the promised reward, and 
now you may go.” 

The elder of the two masons was surprised at 
being let off so easily. 

“ Fve heard and read of this sort of thing,” he 
said, “ but they did things differently then. They 

85 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


used to put the masons’ eyes out, so that even 
they could not find the place again, but of course 
they got a hundred times as much as we do.” 

“ Ah, that was in the good old times,” sighed 
the other. 

Gregorics troubled his head no more about 
them, but closed the heavy oaken door of the 
house, and went home to bed. 

The next morning the cramp returned, and 
was only partially relieved by the medicine Anna 
gave him. He was frightfully weak, and only 
now and then showed interest in what was going 
on around him. 

“ Give us a good dinner, Anna,” he said once, 
“ and make dumplings, the boy likes them.” 

And half an hour afterward: 

“ Make the dumplings with jam, Anna, the boy 
likes them best so.” 

The only thing he would take himself was 
mineral water. Toward afternoon the cramp was 
much worse, and he began to spit blood. Anna 
was frightened, and began to cry, and ask if he 
would not have a doctor or a priest. Gregorics 
shook his head. 

“ No, no, I am quite ready to die, everything 
is in order. I am only waiting for Gyuri. What 
time is it?” 

The church clock just then struck twelve. 

“ It is time the coach arrived. Go and tell 


86 


Pal Gregorics’s Death and Will 


Matyko to wait outside by the gate, and carry 
Gyuri’s bag in when he comes.” 

Anna wrung her hands in despair. Should she 
own she had not sent off the telegram? No, she 
dare not tell him ; she would carry on the decep- 
tion, and send Matyko out to the gate. But the 
sick man got more and more restless. 

“ Anna,” he said, “ take the horn out, and tell 
Matyko to blow it when the boy arrives, so that 
I may know at once.” 

So Anna took down the horn, and had less 
courage than ever to own the truth. 

The sick man was quieter after that, and lis- 
tened attentively, raising his head at every sound, 
and feeling for his umbrella every now and then. 

“ Open the window, Anna, or I shan’t hear 
Matyko blow the horn.” 

The sunlight streamed in through the open 
window, and the perfume of acacia blossoms was 
borne in on the breeze. 

“ Put your hand on my forehead, Anna.” 

She did as she was told, and found his skin 
cold and dry. The sick man sighed. 

“ Your hand is too rough, Anna. The boy’s 
is so soft and warm.” 

He smiled faintly, then opened his eyes. 

“ Did you not hear anything? Listen! Was 
that the horn ?” 

“ I don’t think so. I heard nothing.” 

87 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


Gregorics pointed to a clock in the next 
room. 

“ Stop it,” he said. “ I can’t hear anything. 
Quick, quick!” 

Anna got on a chair, and stopped the clock. 
In that moment she heard a sound in the next 
room, something like a groan, then the muttered 
words : “ I hear the horn !” then another groan. 

| Anna jumped off the chair, and ran into the 
next room. There all was still ; on the bed were 
large spots of blood, and Gregorics lay there dead, 
his face white, his eyes wide open and staring at 
the ceiling. One hand hung down by his side, 
the other firmly held the umbrella. 

Thus died poor Pal Gregorics, and the news of 
his death soon spread among his relations and his 
neighbors. The doctor said he had died of some 
illness with a long Latin name, which no one had 
ever heard, and said that if he had been called 
sooner he might have saved him. 

Boldizsar was soon on the spot, also his brother 
Gaspar with all his family. Mrs. Panyoki, the 
eldest sister, was in the country at the time, and 
on receipt of the news late the same evening, 
exclaimed despairingly : 

“ What a deception ! Here have I been praying 
all my life for him to die in the winter, and he 
must needs go and die in the summer. Is there 
any use in praying nowadays? What a decep- 

88 


Pal Gregorics’s Death and Will 


tion! Those two thieves will take everything 
they can lay their hands on.” 

She ordered the horses to be harnessed, and 
drove off as fast as she could, arriving about 
midnight, by which time the two brothers were 
in possession of everything, had even taken up 
their abode in the house, and driven Anna out 
in spite of her protests that the house was hers, 
and she was mistress there. 

“ Only the four walls are yours, and those you 
shall have. The rest is ours, and a good-for- 
nothing creature like you has no right here. So 
off you go !” 

Gaspar was a lawyer, and understood things; 
how was poor Anna to take her stand against 
him. She could only cry, put on her hat, pack up 
her box, and limp over the road to Matyko’s 
mother. But before she went the two brothers 
turned her box out, to see she took nothing with 
her to which she had no right. 

The funeral took place on the third day. It 
was not a grand one by any means ; no one shed 
a tear except poor Anna, who did not dare go 
near the coffin for fear of being sent off by the 
relations. The boy had not yet arrived from 
Szeged, and it was better so, for he would prob- 
ably have been turned out of the courtyard by the 
two brothers of the dead man. But even though 
Anna did not walk with the mourners, she was 

89 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


the centre of all eyes, for did not that big house 
outside the town belong to her now ? And when 
she dropped her handkerchief wet with her tears, 
did not all the unmarried men, one of them even 
a lawyer, rush to pick it up for her? 

This incident went to prove how much she had 
risen in people’s estimation. After the funeral, 
there was a general gathering of all the family at 
Sztolarik’s in order to hear the will read. Well, 
it was a rather strange one on the whole. 

The old gentleman had left 2000 florins to the 
Academy of Arts and Sciences, and 2000 florins 
to each of the ladies at whose houses he had 
visited years before, and to those who had refused 
to marry him. Nine ladies were mentioned by 
name, and the legacy had been placed in the hands 
of Sztolarik to be paid at once to the legatees. 

The relations listened with bated breath, every 
now and then throwing in a remark, such as, 
“ Very good. Quite right of him,” etc. Only 
Mrs. Panyoki muttered, when the nine ladies’ 
names were read out : “ Dear me, how very 
strange !” 

Boldizsar, who was of opinion it was not worth 
while worrying over such trifles (after all, Pal 
had been slightly mad all his life), said grandly: 

“ Please continue, Mr. Sztolarik.” 

The lawyer answered shortly : “ There is no 
more 1 ” 


90 


Pal Gregorics’s Death and Will 


Their surprise was great, and there was a gen- 
eral rush to look at the will. 

“ Impossible !” they all exclaimed at once. 

The lawyer turned his back on them repeating : 

“ I tell you there is not another word !” 

“ And the rest of his fortune, his estates in 
Bohemia ?” 

“ There is no mention of them. I can only read 
what I see written here ; you must at least under- 
stand that, gentlemen.” 

“ It is incomprehensible,” groaned Gaspar. 

“ The curious part of it is,” remarked Boldiz- 
sar, “ that there is no mention of that woman and 
her son.” 

“ Yes, of course,” answered Gaspar, “ it does 
seem strange.” 

The lawyer hastened to reassure them. 

“ It can make no difference to you,” he said. 
“ Whatever fortune there may be that is not 
mentioned in the will falls to you in any case.” 

“ Yes, of course,” said Gaspar, “ and that is 
only right. But the money? Where is it? There 
must be any amount of it. I’m afraid some wrong 
has been done.” 

Mrs. Panyoki said nothing, only looked sus- 
piciously at her two brothers. 


CHAPTER IV. 

THE AVARICIOUS GREGORICS. 

The contents of the will soon became known 
in the town, and caused quite a little storm in 
the various patriarchal drawing-rooms, with 
their old-fashioned cherry-wood pianos, over 
which hung the well-known picture, the “ March 
of Miklos Zrinyi,” and their white embroidered 
table-cloths on small tables, in the centre of which 
stands a silver candlestick, or a glass brought 
from some watering-place with the name engraved 
on it, and a bunch of lilac in it. Yes, in those 
dear little drawing-rooms, there was any amount 
of gossip going on. It was really disgraceful of 
Gregorics, but he was always tactless. The idea 
of compromising honest old ladies, mothers and 
grandmothers ! 

The nine ladies were the talk of the town, their 
names were in every mouth, and though there 
were many who blamed Gregorics, there were also 
some who took his part. 

“ After all,” they said, “ who knows what ties 


92 


The Avaricious Gregorics 


there were between them? Gregorics must have 
been a lively fellow in his youth.” 

And even those who defended Gregorics de- 
cided that after all there must have been some 
friendship between him and the nine ladies at 
some time or other, or why should he have re- 
membered them in his will ; but his behavior was 
not gentlemanly in any case, even if they were to 
believe the worst. In fact, in that case it was 
even more tactless. 

“ For such behavior he ought to be turned out 
of the club, I mean he ought to have been turned 
out ; in fact, I mean, if he were alive he might be 
turned out. I assure you, if they write on his 
gravestone that he was an honorable man, I’ll 
strike it out with my own pencil.” 

These were the words of the notary. 

The captain of the fire-brigade looked at it from 
a different point of view. 

“ It is a cowardly trick,” he declared. “Women 
only reckon until they are thirty-five years of age, 
and these are all old women. A little indiscre- 
tion of this kind cannot hurt them. If you 
breathe on a rusty bit of steel it leaves no mark. 
We only remove caterpillars from those trees 
which have flowers or leaves, or which will bear 
fruit, but on old, dried-up trees we leave them 
alone. But it is the husbands Gregorics has 
offended, for it is cowardly to affront people who 


93 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


cannot demand satisfaction from you. And I 
think I may affirm with safety that Gregorics 
is now incapable of giving satisfaction.” 

The next morning Istvan Vozary (whose wife 
was one of the nine ladies mentioned in the will) 
appeared at the lawyer’s and informed him that 
as his wife had never had anything to do with the 
dead man, she had no intention of accepting the 
2000 florins. When this was known in the town, 
the eight remaining ladies arrived, one after the 
other, at the lawyer’s, in order to make known to 
him their refusal of the legacy, as they also had 
nothing to do with Gregorics. 

I do not know when Sztolarik had had such 
a lively time of it as on that day, for it was really 
amusing to see those wrinkled old dames, tooth- 
less and gray-haired, coming to defend their 
honor. 

But it was even livelier for the Gregorics fam- 
ily, for they thus got back the 20,000 florins they 
had been cheated out of — that is, with the excep- 
tion of the 2000 florins left to the Academy of 
Arts and Sciences, for, of course, the Academy 
accepted the legacy, though it also had had noth- 
ing to do with Gregorics. But the Academy (the 
tenth old woman) was not so conscientious as 
the other nine. 

The joy of the Gregorics soon turned to bitter- 
ness, for they could not manage to find out where 


94 


The Avaricious Gregorics 


the Bohemian estates were. Gaspar went off to 
Prague, but came back after a fruitless search. 
They were unable to find any papers referring to 
the estates; not a bill, not a receipt, not a letter 
was to be found. 

“ It was incomprehensible, such a thing had 
never happened before,” Boldizsar said. 

They were wild with anger, and threatened 
Matyko and Anna to have them locked up, if they 
would not tell them where the estates were in 
Bohemia ; and at length they were brought before 
the Court and examined. Matyko at least must 
know all about it, for he had travelled every- 
where with his master. 

So Matyko had to own that his master had 
never been to Bohemia at all, but had always gone 
to Szeged or to Kolozsvar, where Gyuri had been 
at school. 

Oh ! that sly Pal Gregorics, how he had cheated 
his relations ! Now it was as clear as day why he 
had turned all his possessions into money, of 
course he had given it all to that boy. But had 
he given it him? How could he have trusted 
hundreds of thousands to a child of that age? 
Then, where had he put it ? to whom had he given 
it? That was the riddle the Gregorics were trying 
to solve. 

The lawyer, the last person who had spoken 
to Gregorics, declared he had not mentioned any 


95 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


motley and Anna swore by Heaven and earth 
that she and her son had not received a kreutzer 
from him, and were much embittered at the fact 
of his leaving them without any provision. She 
had not a good word to say for the dead man. 
He had made the boy unhappy for life, spending 
so much on him and his education, and then 
leaving him totally without providing for him; 
so that the boy, for whom expensive professors 
had been kept, would now be reduced to giving 
lessons himself, in order to enable him to live, 
for the house would hardly bring in enough to 
pay for his keep, while attending the lectures at 
the University. 

“ Well,” said Sztolarik, “ if he had intended 
the boy to have his money, he could have given 
it straight into his hands, no one could prevent 
it.” 

This was quite true, and that was the very 
reason it seemed so strange he had not done so. 
The house in Vienna had been sold for 180,000 
florins, the Privorec estates for 75,000, which 
made over a quarter of million florins. Good 
heavens! Where had he put it to? If he had 
exchanged the paper notes for gold, melted it, and 
eaten it by spoonfuls ever since, he could not have 
finished it yet. 

But Gregorics had been a careful man, so the 
money must be in existence somewhere. It was 

96 


The Avaricious Gregorics 


enough to drive one mad. It did not seem likely 
that Anna or the boy should have the money, nor 
Sztolarik, who was Gyuri Wibra’s guardian; so 
the brothers Gregorics did not despair of finding 
it, and they engaged detectives to keep their eyes 
on Anna, and looked up a sharp boy in Pest to 
let them know how Gyuri lived there, and to find 
out from his conversation whether he knew any- 
thing of the missing money. For Gyuri had gone 
to Pest, to attend the University lectures, and 
study law. The boy sent word that Gyuri lived 
very simply, attended every lecture, lived at the 
“ Seven Owls,” and dined at a cheap eating-house 
known by the name of the “ First of April.” This 
little restaurant was mostly frequented by law 
students. On the daily bill of fare was the 
picture of a fat man speaking to a very thin man, 
and underneath was the following conversation : 

Thin man : “ How well you look ; where do you 
dine?” 

Fat man : “ Why here, at the 4 First of April.' ” 

Thin man: “ Really? Well, I shall dine there 
too for the future.” 

All the same, the fare was not of the best, and 
perhaps the above conversation was intended to 
make April Fools of people. For the restaurant- 
keepers of olden times were frank, and even if 
they lied, they did it so naively, that every one 
saw through the lie. 


97 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


Gaspar Gregorics received the following par- 
ticulars as to Gyuri’s mode of life : 

“ He breakfasts at a cheap coffee-house, attends 
lectures all the morning, dines at the ‘ First of 
April/ the afternoon he passes at a lawyer’s 
office, copying deeds, etc., and in the evening he 
buys a little bacon or fried fish for supper, then 
goes home and studies till midnight. Every one 
likes him, and he will make his way in the 
world.” 

That avaricious Gaspar Gregorics began to 
wish the boy had the quarter of a million after 
all, for he might in a few years’ time marry his 
daughter Minka, who was just eleven. 

Anna had let the house, and Sztolarik sent 
Gyuri thirty florins every month out of the rent. 

The Gregorics divided the 18,000 florins re- 
fused by the nine ladies, among the three of them, 
and also the few hundreds obtained by the sale 
of the dead man’s furniture and personal prop- 
erty, but the rest of the money was still missing. 

The whole town was discussing the question 
of its whereabouts, and all sorts of silly tales were 
set afloat. Some said the old gentleman had sent 
it to Klapka, and that one day Klapka would 
return with it in the form of guns and cannon. 
Others said he had a castle, somewhere away in 
the woods, where he kept a very beautiful lady, 
and even if he had not been able to eat up his 

98 


The Avaricious Gregorics 


fortune in the form of melted gold, a pretty 
woman would soon know how to dispose of it. 

But what made the most impression on every 
one was, that an ironmonger appeared at Gaspar’s 
house with a bill for a large caldron Gregorics 
had bought the day before his death, but had not 
paid for. 

Gaspar gave a long whistle. 

“ That caldron was not among the things we 
sold, ,, he said. And he went through the inven- 
tory again; but no, the caldron was not there. 

“ I am on the right road,” thought Gaspar. 
“ He did not buy the caldron for nothing. Conse- 
quently, what did he buy it for? Why, to put 
something in it of course, and that something is 
what we are looking for!” 

Boldizsar was of the same opinion, and posi- 
tively beamed with delight. 

“ It is God’s finger,” he said. “ Now I believe 
we shall find the treasure. Pal must have buried 
the caldron somewhere, thinking to do us out of 
our rights ; and he would have succeeded if he had 
not been so stupid as not to pay for the caldron. 
But luckily in cases of this kind the wrongdoer 
generally makes some stupid mistake.” 

The ironmonger remembered that it was Ma- 
tyko who had chosen the caldron and taken it 
with him ; so Gaspar one day sent for the servant, 
gave him a good dinner with plenty of wine, and 


99 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


began to question him about Pal’s last days, 
introducing the incident of the caldron, the bill 
for which the ironmonger had just sent him he 
said. 

“ What about it, Matyko,” he asked. “ Did 
your master really order it ? I can hardly believe 
it, for what could he have wanted it for? I’m 
afraid you have been buying things for yourself, 
in your master’s name.” 

That was the very way to make Matyko speak, 
to doubt his honor ; and now he let out the whole 
story in order to clear himself. The day before 
his death, his master had told him to go and buy 
a caldron, and bring it him, together with two 
masons. He had done as he was told, and toward 
evening had taken the caldron into his master’s 
bedroom; the masons had arrived at the same 
time, and had seen the caldron, so they could bear 
witness to the fact. 

“ Well, that’s right, Matyko, you’re a lucky 
fellow, for if you have two witnesses, your honor 
is as intact as ever, and you must consider my 
words as unspoken. Drink another glass of wine, 
and don’t be offended at my suspicion; after all, 
it was only a natural conclusion ; we could find 
no traces of the caldron, and the ironmonger 
wanted to be paid for it, and said you had taken 
it away. Where can it have got to ?” 

“ Heaven only knows,” answered Matyko. 


ioo 


The Avaricious Gregorics 


“ Did you never see it again ?” 

! “ Never.” 

“ And what became of the masons ? What did 
they come for?” 

“ I don't know.” 

Gaspar smiled pleasantly at the man. 

“ You are like ‘ John Don’t-know’ in the fairy 
tale. He always answered, ‘ I don’t know’ to 
everything that was asked him. Of course you 
don’t know the two witnesses either who could 
establish your innocence? In that case, my good 
fellow, you’re no better off than you were before.” 

“ But I do know one of them.” 

“ What is his name?” 

“ Oh, I don’t know his name.” 

“ Well, how do you know him, then?” 

“ He has three hairs at the end of his nose.” 

“ Rubbish ! He may have cut them off since 
then.” * 

“ I should know him all the same by his face ; 
it is just like an owl’s.” 

“ And where did you pick up the two masons ?” 

“ They were mending the wall of the parish 
church.” 

By degrees Gaspar Gregorics got all particulars 
out of the man; and now the ground seemed to 
be burning under his feet, so he went straight 
into the town to look for the man with the three 
hairs on his nose. 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


It was not difficult to find him, and at the first 
place he asked at, three voices answered at once : 

“ That must be Andras Prepelicza. His mus- 
tache made a mistake, and grew on the top of his 
nose instead of on his lip.” 

After that it was mere child’s play, for every 
workman knew that Prepelicza was “ building 
Pest,” as they expressed it. He was working at 
a large house in the Kerepesi Street. 

Gaspar immediately had the horses harnessed, 
and drove to Pest, not stopping till he reached 
the capital; and there he set to work to find 
Prepelicza among the Slovak workmen. The 
mason was just going up on a pulley to the third 
story when he found him, and Gaspar shuddered 
as he thought : “ Supposing the cords were to 
give way now !” 

“ Hallo, Prepelicza!” he shouted. “Wait a 
bit, I was just looking for you. I want to have 
a talk with you.” 

“ All right,” called out the mason, examining 
the newcomer from above. “ Come up if you 
want to talk.” 

“ You come down to me, it is very important.” 

“ Well, shout it out, I can hear it all right up 
here.” 

“ I can’t do that, I must speak to you in private 
at any cost.” 

“ Good or bad ?” 


102 


The Avaricious Gregorics 


“ Very good.” 

“ Good for me?” 

“ Yes, good for you.” 

“ Well, if it is good for me it can wait till the 
evening. I shall be down by then, but I want 
to finish this top window first.” 

“ Don’t argue, but come down at once. You 
won’t be sorry for it.” 

“ Why, I don’t even know who you are.” 

“ I’ll send you word in a minute.” 

And with the next pulley he sent Prepelicza up 
a nice new crisp ten-florin note. The man who 
took it up got a florin for doing so. 

At the sight of this novel visiting-card Prepe- 
licza threw down his hammer and trowel, and 
with the next pulley returned to his mother earth, 
where miracles have been going on ever since the 
time of Moses. 

“ What can I do for you, sir ?” 

“ Follow me.” 

“ To the end of the world, sir.” 

“ We need not go as far as that,” said Gregor- 
ics, smiling. And they only went as far as “ The 
Cock,” a small public-house, where they ordered 
some wine, after drinking which, the wily Gaspar 
began, smiling blandly: 

“ Can you speak, Prepelicza ?” 

The mason began to wonder what was going 
to happen, and looked long and attentively into 

103 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


the steely gray eyes of his new acquaintance, and 
then said guardedly: 

“ A jay can speak, sir.” 

“I am from Besztercebanya.” 

“ Really? There are very decent people there. 
I seem to know your face too, sir.” 

“ You probably mistake me for my half- 
brother,” said Gaspar. “ You know, the one who 
had the caldron put away so secretly.” 

“ The caldron !” Prepelicza’s mouth was wide 
open from astonishment. “ Was that your 
brother? Now I understand where the likeness 
is, at least ... I mean . . . (and he began to 
scratch his ear doubtfully). What caldron are 
you speaking of ? I can’t be expected to remember 
every pot and pan I have seen in my life.” 

Gaspar was prepared for such hitches as this, 
so was not surprised, and offered the mason a 
cigar, which he immediately wetted to make it 
burn slower, then lit it, and began to drum on the 
I table like a man who has just found out that he 
has something to sell, and has the right purchaser 
before him. Now he must be as phlegmatic as 
possible, and the price of the article would rise 
in proportion. 

His heart beat loud and fast, and the white 
cock framed on the wall above the green table 
seemed to awake to life before his eyes, and to 
crow out these words : “ Good afternoon, Andras 


104 


The Avaricious Gregorics 

Prepelicza! Cock-a-doodledo. You have luck 
before you ! Seize hold of it !” 

“ What do you say, Prepelicza, you don’t re- 
member the caldron ? What do you take me for ? 
Do I look like a fool? But I daresay in your 
place I should do the same. This wine is very 
good, isn’t it? What do you say? It tastes of 
the cask? Why, my good fellow, it can’t taste 
of mortar, can it? Here, waiter, fetch another 
bottle of wine, and then be off and leave us alone. 
Well, what were we speaking of? Ah, yes, you 
said a short time ago that the jay could speak, and 
that is quite true ; you are a wise man, Prepelicza, 
and the right man for me, for we shall soon come 
to terms. Yes, the jay can speak, but only if they 
cut its tongue. That is what you meant, isn’t it ?” 

“ H’m !” was the answer, and the three hairs 
on the mason’s nose began to move, as though 
a breath of air had passed through them. 

“ I know of course that they cut the jay’s 
tongue with a knife, but as you are not a bird, 
Prepelicza . . 

“ No, no,” stammered the man hastily. 

“ Well, instead of a knife I take these two 
bank-notes to cut your tongue with.” 

And with that he took two hundred-florin 
bank-notes out of his pocket-book. 

The eyes of the mason fixed themselves greed- 
ily upon the bank-notes, upon the two figures 

I0 5 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


printed on them, one holding a sheaf of wheat, 
the other a book; his eyes nearly dropped out of 
his head he stared so hard, and then he said : 

“ The caldron was heavy, very heavy indeed.” 

That was all he could get out, while he contin- 
ued gazing at the two cherubs on the paper notes. 
He had six of his own at home, but they were not 
as pretty as these. 

“ Well, my good man,” said Gregorics sur- 
prised, “ still silent ?” 

“ It would be like a stone on my heart if I were 
to speak,” sighed the mason — “ a very big stone. 
I don’t think I could bear it.” 

“ Don’t talk such nonsense ! A stone, indeed ! 
Why, you have had to do with nothing else all 
your life, you need not cry about having one on 
your heart! You can’t expect me to give you 
two hundred florins, and then give you a hot roll 
to carry in your heart. Don’t be a fool, man.” 

Prepelicza smiled at this, but he put his big 
red hands behind his back, a sign that he did not 
intend to touch the money. 

“ Perhaps you find it too little?” 

Not a word did he answer, only pushed his hair 
up in front, till he looked like a sick cockatoo; 
then, after a few moments, raised his glass to his 
lips, and drained it' to the dregs, and then put it 
back on the table so brusquely that it broke. 

“ It is disgraceful !” he burst out ; “ a poor 

106 


The Avaricious Gregorics 


man’s honor is only worth two hundred florins, 
though God created us all equal, and He gave me 
my honor as well as to the bishop or to Baron 
Radvanszky. And yet you tax mine at two hun- 
dred florins. It’s a shame!” 

Upon that Gaspar decided to play his trump. 

“ Very well, Prepelicza, you needn’t be so cross. 
If your honor is so dear, I’ll look for cheaper.” 

And with that he put back the two bank-notes, 
in his pocket. 

“ I’ll look up your companion, the other 
mason.” 

Then he called the head waiter, in order to 
pay for the wine. Prepelicza smiled. 

“ Well, well, can’t a poor man give his opinion? 
Of course you can look up the other man, and he 
won’t be as honest as I, probably. But . . . 
well, put another fifty to it, and I’ll tell you all.” 

“ Very well. It’s a bargain !” 

And the mason began to relate the events of 
that memorable night, and how they had carried 
the caldron through the courtyard and garden to 
a small house. 

“To the ‘Lebanon’!” exclaimed Gaspar ex- 
citedly. “ To that boy’s house!” 

And the mason went on to tell how Gregorics 
had stood by while they had walled in the caldron, 
and watched every movement, Gaspar throwing 
in a question now and then. 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


“ Was it heavy ?” 

“ Very heavy” 

“ Did no one see you as you passed through 
the courtyard?” 

“ No one ; every one had gone to bed.” 

Gaspar was quite excited, and seemed to enjoy 
every word he heard ; his eyes shone, his thoughts 
were occupied with the future, in which he imag- 
ined himself a rich man, the owner of untold 
wealth. He might even buy a baronetcy ! Baron 
Gaspar Gregorics! How well it sounded! And 
Minka would be a little baroness. That fool of 
a Pal had not known how to make proper use 
of his wealth, so it must have increased im- 
mensely, he had been so economical ! 

“ And what did my brother pay you for your 
work?” 

“ He gave us each fifty florins.” 

“ That was quite right of him.” 

A weight had fallen from his heart at these 
words, for he had begun to fear Gregorics had 
given them some thousands to buy their silence, 
and that would have been a great pity, as it would 
have diminished the sum he hoped to possess 
before long. For he had decided to buy “ Leba- 
non,” with its caldron and its orchard. He would 
go to-morrow to that boy's guardian and make 
an offer for it. And he rejoiced inwardly at the 
trick he was playing his brother and sister. 

xo8 


The Avaricious Gregorics 


He returned home as fast as horses could take 
him, and did not even stop at his own house, but 
went straight on to Sztolarik’s and informed him 
he would like to buy “ Lebanon.” 

This was the name they had given to the 
orchard and house old Gregorics had bought of 
the clergyman’s widow. He had tried to grow 
cedars there at first, but the soil of Besztercebanya 
was not suitable for these trees, and the sarcastic 
inhabitants of the small town christened the 
orchard “ Lebanon.” 

Mr. Sztolarik showed no surprise at the offer. 

“ So you want to buy 4 Lebanon’ ?” he said. 
“ It is a good orchard, and produces the finest 
fruit imaginable. This year a well-known hotel- 
keeper bought all the fruit, and paid an enormous 
price for it. But what made you think of buying 
4 Lebanon’?” 

“ I should like to build a house there, a larger 
house than the present one.” 

“ H’m ! There is always a good deal of bother 
attached to a purchase of that kind,” said Sztola- 
rik coldly; “ the present owner is a minor, and the 
Court of Chancery must give permission for the 
sale to take place. I would rather leave things 
as they are. When the boy is of age he may do 
what he likes, but if I sell it now he may be sorry 
for it later on. No, no, Mr. Gregorics, I can’t 
agree to it. After all the house and orchard are 


109 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


a pretium affectionis for the boy; he spent his 
childhood there.” 

“ But if I offer a good sum for it,” broke in 
Gaspar, nervously. 

Sztolarik began to feel curious. 

“ What do you consider a good sum ? What 
do you think of offering for it ?” 

“ Why, I would give — ” and here he was over- 
come by a fit of coughing, which made him turn 
as red as a peony — “ I would give 15,000 florins.” 

Well, that was a brilliant offer, for Pal Gregor- 
ys had bought it of the clergyman's widow for 
5000 florins. It was only a small bit of ground, 
and a good way from the market, which decreased 
its value exceedingly. 

“ Utcumque,” said Sztolarik, “ your offer is 
a good one. But, but . . . well, I'll tell you 
what, Mr. Gregorics, I’ll consider your offer 
a bit, and I must write to the boy about it too, 
and also speak to his mother.” 

“ But I want to settle it as soon as possible.” 

“ I'll write about it to-day.” 

Gaspar did not wish to say any more about the 
matter, for fear of awakening the lawyer’s sus- 
picions, but a day or two afterward he sent a tiny 
cask of Tokay wine to him (some Pal Gregorics 
had left in his cellar, and which they had divided 
among them), with the inquiry as to whether he 
had any answer from Budapest. Sztolarik sent 


no 


The Avaricious Gregorics 


back word he expected a letter every minute, and 
thanked him very much for the wine; he also 
remarked to the footman who had brought it that 
he hoped it would go smoothly, but whether he 
meant the wine, or something else, the footman 
did not quite understand. 

Hardly had the man gone, when the expected 
letter arrived, containing the news that Gyuri 
agreed to the sale of the orchard, and Sztolarik 
was just going to send one of his clerks to 
Gaspar, when the door opened, and in walked 
Boldizsar Gregorics, puffing and blowing from 
the haste he had made. 

“ Pray take a seat, Mr. Gregorics. To what 
do I owe the honor of your visit ?” 

“ I'Ve brought you a lot of money,” gasped 
Boldizsar, still out of breath. 

“ We can always do with plenty of that,” said 
the lawyer. 

“ I want to buy that poor orphan’s little bit of 
property, ‘ Lebanon.’ ” 

“ ‘ Lebanon’ ?” repeated Sztolarik, surprised. 
“What on earth is the matter with them all?” 
he muttered to himself; then continued out loud: 
“ Perhaps you want it for your brother ?” 

“ No, no, I want it for myself. It would suit 
me nicely; the view from there is so lovely, and 
the fruit-trees are so good.” 

“ It is really strange, very strange !” 


hi 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


“Why is it strange?” said the other, sur- 
prised. 

“ Because I have already one purchaser in 
view. ,, 

“ Well, we won’t let him have it. I daresay I 
can offer you more than he.” 

“ I doubt it,” said the lawyer; “ the first offer 
was 15,000 florins.” 

Boldizsar showed no surprise. 

“ Well, I offer 20,000.” 

Not till after he had said it did it occur to him 
that the orchard was not worth even 15,000 florins, 
and he turned impatiently and asked : 

“ Who is the fool who offers so much ?” 

“ Your brother Gaspar.” 

At this name Boldizsar turned deathly pale, and 
dropped gasping on to a chair. His lips moved, 
but no sound came from them, and Sztolarik 
thought he would have a stroke, and rushed out 
for some water, calling for help as he went; but 
when he returned with the cook armed with a 
rolling-pin and a jug of water, the old gentleman 
had recovered, and began to excuse himself. 

“ I felt a bit giddy ; I often have attacks like 
this. I’m getting old, you see. And now to return 
to our discussion. Yes, I’ll give you 20,000 florins 
for ‘ Lebanon/ and pay the money down.” 

The lawyer thought a minute, then said: 

<f We can’t manage things so quickly, for we 


112 


The Avaricious Gregorics 


must have the consent of the Court of Chancery. 
I’ll see about it at once.” 

And he was as good as his word, for such an 
advantageous sale of the orchard he had never 
dared to hope for. But all the time he was won- 
dering why the two Gregorics were so anxious 
to have it. There must be some reason for it. 
Supposing they had struck upon some treasure 
there, it was not impossible, for had not King 
Arpad and his successors lived about here? 
He decided to send Istvan Drotler, the civil 
engineer, to have a look at the place, and see if 
it contained gold or coal. But before he had time 
to start for the engineer’s, Gaspar Gregorics 
appeared on the scene, to ask if there were any 
letter from Pest. Sztolarik was in difficulties. 

“ The letter is here, yes, the letter is here ; but 
something else has happened. Another purchaser 
has turned up, and he offers 20,000 florins for 
4 Lebanon.’ ” 

This was evidently a great blow for Gaspar. 

“ Impossible,” he stammered. “ Is it Boldiz- 
sar?” 

“ Yes.” 

Gaspar was furious; he began to swear like 
a trooper, and waved his stick about, thereby 
knocking down one of Mrs. Sztolarik’s flower- 
pots, in which a rare specimen of hyacinth was 
just blossoming. 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


“ The wretch !” he hissed. And then he sat 
staring fixedly in front of him for some time. 

How did he get to know of it ? was the question 
he was revolving in his mind. It was very simple. 
That sly Prepelicza had easily found out in 
Besztercebanya that Pal Gregorics had more than 
one brother living, and he decided that if one of 
them paid him 250 florins for the secret, the other 
would perhaps be inclined to pay something too. 
So he got into the train, travelled to Beszterce- 
banya, and looked up Boldizsar. There was 
nothing surprising in that except, perhaps, the 
fact that Prepelicza was not such a fool as he 
looked. 

“ Oh, the wretch !” Gaspar kept on saying. 
“ But he shall not have it, I will buy it. I’ll give 
you 25,000 florins for it.” 

Sztolarik smiled and rubbed his hands. 

“ It will belong to the one who gives most for 
it. If it were mine, I would give it you for the 
15,000 florins you offered at first, for I always 
keep my word. But as it belongs to a minor, and 
I have his interests at heart, I must do the best 
I can for him. Now don’t you think I am right?” 

Gaspar agreed with him, and tried to make him 
promise to give him the preference. But what 
was the good of it ? Sztolarik met Boldizsar that 
evening at the club, and made no secret of the 
fact that Gaspar had been to see him that morn- 


The Avaricious Gregorios 

ing, and offered him 5000 florins more for the 
orchard. But Boldizsar was not surprised, and 
only answered : 

“ Well, I will give 30,000.” 

And this mad auction went on for days, until 
the attention of the whole town was drawn to 
it, and people began to think the Gregorics must 
have gone mad, or that there must be some impor- 
tant reason for their wishing to have possession 
of “ Lebanon.” 

Gaspar came and offered 32,000 florins, and 
as soon as Boldizsar heard of it, he came and 
offered 3000 florins more ; and so on, until 
people’s hair began to stand on end. 

“ Let them go on as long as they like,” thought 
the lawyer. 

And they did go on, until they reached the sum 
of 50,000 florins, which was Boldizsar’s last offer. 
And heaven only knows how long it would have 
gone on still. 

The engineer had been to look at the place, and 
had declared there was nothing of any value to 
be found there, not even a bit of gold, unless it 
were the stoppings of some dead woman’s teeth. 

“ But supposing there is coal there ?” 

“ Not a sign of it.” 

“ Then what on earth are the Gregorics think- 
ing of?” 

Whatever the reason was, it was certainly to 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


Gyuri’s advantage, and his guardian meant to 
make the most of the opportunity, so he let the 
two brothers go on bidding till the sum promised 
was 50,000 florins. He intended to wait till 
Gaspar capped it with 52,000, and then close the 
bargain. 

£ But he had reckoned without his host, for one 
fine day it suddenly occurred to Gaspar it was 
strange Mrs. Panyoki showed no signs of taking 
part in the auction. She evidently knew nothing 
of the existence of the treasure; Prepelicza had 
not told her the secret, and had thus proved him- 
self a clever man, for if he had told her too, his 
part in the play was over. Whereas now, when 
the two brothers had the caldron in their posses- 
sion, they would be obliged to pay him hush- 
money to hold his tongue. As Gaspar turned all 
this over in his mind, he began to find it ridiculous 
for him and Boldizsar to keep on outbidding each 
other, thus attracting every one’s attention to 
them, putting money into the boy’s pocket, and 
awakening Mrs. Panyoki’s suspicions. And 
whichever bought “ Lebanon” at last would cer- 
tainly not be left to enjoy it unmolested. So he 
decided it would be cheaper if they were to work 
together, buy the estate, share the contents of the 
caldron, and pay Prepelicza a certain sum yearly 
to hold his tongue. 

So one day the brothers came to terms, and 
11 6 


The Avaricious Gregorics 


Sztolarik was very surprised when, the next day, 
the door opened, and in walked Boldizsar and 
announced that he had thought things over, and 
come to the conclusion that “ Lebanon” was 
decidedly not worth 50,000 florins, and he had 
given up all idea of buying it. 

“ That does not matter,” said Sztolarik, “ your 
brother will give us 48,000 for it.” 

And he waited impatiently till he had a chance 
of speaking to Gaspar about it. But that good 
man calmly answered : 

“ It was very stupid of me to offer so much for 
it, and I am really grateful to you, Sztolarik, for 
not taking me at my word at once. Why, I can 
buy a good-sized estate for the money I offered 
for it.” 

The lawyer hardly knew what to do next. He 
was afraid he had made them go back on their 
bargain, by letting them carry it on so long, and 
felt sure he would be the laughing stock of the 
town, and that Gyuri would reproach him with 
not looking after his interests properly. So off he 
rushed to Boldizsar and offered him “ Lebanon” 
for 45,000 florins; but Boldizsar only laughed, 
and said: 

“ Do you take me for a fool ?” 

Whereupon he went to Gaspar and said: 

“ Well, you may have ‘ Lebanon’ for 40,000 
florins.” 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


Gaspar shook his head and answered: 

“ I’m not quite mad yet.” 

And now the auction began again, but this 
time it went backward , until at last, with the 
greatest difficulty, Sztolarik got 15,000 florins 
out of them. They bought it together, and both 
signed their names to the deeds. 

On the day they received the key of the house 
from the guardian, they both went there, shut 
themselves in, and began to pull down the inner 
wall with the pickaxes they had brought with 
them under their cloaks. Of course they found 
the caldron, but what was in it has not become 
clear to this day, though that was the chief point 
to be settled in the Gregorics lawsuit, which took 
up the attention of the Besztercebanya law courts 
for ten years. 

It began in this way. A few months after the 
purchase of “ Lebanon,” Prepelicza appeared on 
the scene, and demanded his share of the treasure 
discovered in the wall, otherwise he would make 
known the whole affair to Mrs. Panyoki. 
The brothers got mad with rage at the sight 
of him. 

“You miserable thief!” they cried. “You 
were a party to the fraud practised upon us by 
that good-for-nothing brother of ours, who 
wanted to rob us in order to benefit that boy. 
You helped him to fill the caldron with rusty nails 

118 


The Avaricious Gregorics 


and bits of old iron. Now you are here, you 
may as well have your share.” 

With that they each seized hold of a stick, and 
began to beat Prepelicza till he was black and 
blue. Off he went to a doctor for a certificate as 
to his wounds, and then to the barber, who had 
to write a long letter to the king in his name, 
complaining of the behavior of the two brothers 
Gregorics toward one of his honest (?) subjects. 

“ If the king is not ashamed of them as sub- 
jects, I am not ashamed of owning how I have 
been beaten; they were two to one!” 

Then he hired a cart (for it was impossible 
for him to walk in his present state), and drove 
to Varecska, where Mrs. Panyoki spent the 
summer, and told her the whole tale from begin- 
ning to end. 

The result was the lawsuit Panyoki versus 
Gregorics, which furnished the neighborhood 
with gossip for ten years. A whole legion of 
witnesses had to be examined, and the deeds and 
papers increased to such an extent that at the end 
they weighed seventy-three pounds. Mrs. Pan- 
yoki could only prove the existence of the caldron, 
its having been walled in, and its appropriation 
later on by the two brothers, who, on their part, 
tried to prove that it contained nothing of value, 
only a number of rusty nails and odd bits of iron. 
As the dead man had no lawyer to defend him, 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


he lost the lawsuit, for it was certain he had 
played the trick on his relations, and thus brought 
about the lawsuit, which only ended when it was 
all the same which side lost or won it, for the 
seventy-three pounds of paper and the six lawyers 
had eaten up the whole of the Gregorics and 
Panyoki fortunes. By degrees all the members 
of the family died in poverty, and were forgotten ; 
only Pal Gregorics lived in the memories of the 
six lawyers, who remarked from time to time: 
“ He was a clever man !” 

But in spite of all researches, the dead man’s 
fortune was still missing, not a trace of it was 
to be found, no one had inherited it except rumor, 
which did as it liked with it, decreased it, increased 
it, placed it here or there at pleasure. 


T races 


PART III 





CHAPTER I. 

THE UMBRELLA AGAIN. 

Many years passed, and things had changed 
very much in Besztercebanya, but the thing that 
will interest us most is the door-plate on the 
house formerly inhabited by old Gregorics, on 
which is to be read : “ Gyorgy Wibra, lawyer.” 

Yes, little Gyuri is now a well-known lawyer; 
people come to him from all sides for advice, and 
young girls smile at him from their windows as 
he passes. He is a very handsome young man, 
and clever. He has youth and health, and his 
whole life before him, what more can he want? 
But the narrow-minded inhabitants of the little 
town are at present only occupied with one ques- 
tion, viz., whom will he marry? Why, Katka 
Krikovszky would marry him any day, and she 
is the prettiest girl in the town. Then there is 
Mathilda Hupka, who would receive him with 
open arms if he came to her with a proposal, 
though she is very high and mighty. And even 


123 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


Mariska Biky would not refuse him, and she 
belongs to the nobility, and has 50,000 florins. 
Girls are very cheap nowadays ! But Gyuri 
Wibra paid no attention to any of them; he was 
a serious and retiring young man, and his friends 
soon saw that he was infinitely above them in 
every way. As a rule young men first take their 
diploma, then start an office, look out for clients 
who do not come, and by their absence make the 
place seem so large and empty, that the young 
lawyer feels he must have company of some kind. 
So he brings home a wife to cheer his solitude. 

But it never occurred to Gyuri to marry. And 
once when Mrs. Krikovszky broached the subject 
to him and asked when they would hear of his 
engagement, he answered absently : 

“ I am not in the habit of marrying.” 

It certainly is a bad “ habit,” but one that does 
not seem inclined to go out of fashion. For 
thousands of years people have been marrying, 
repenting of it, and considering it madness to 
have done so, but they never get over the madness, 
and marriage is as fashionable as ever. As long 
as pretty young girls are growing up, they are 
always growing up for some one. 

Gyuri’s business was a brilliant success from the 
beginning; fortune smiled on him from every 
side, but he received it with a tolerably sour face. 
He worked, but only from habit, just the same 


124 


The Umbrella Again 

as he washed himself and brushed his hair every 
day. His mind was elsewhere; but where? His 
friends thought they knew, and often asked him : 

“ Why don’t you marry, old fellow ?” 

“ Because I am not rich enough.” 

“ Why, that is the verygreason you should 
marry. Your wife will bring the money with 
her.” 

- (That is the usual opinion of young men.) 

Gyuri shook his head, a handsome, manly head, 
with an oval face, and large black eyes. 

“ That is not true. It is the money brings the 
wife!” 

What sort of a wife had he set his heart on? 
His friends decided he must be chasing very 
high game. Perhaps he wanted a baroness, or 
even a countess? He was like the Virginian 
creeper they said, which first climbs very high 
and then blossoms. But if he were to marry, he 
could be successful later on all the same. Look 
at the French beans; they climb and blossom at 
the same time. 

But this was all empty talk. There was nothing 
whatever to prevent Gyuri getting on in his pro- 
fession; nothing troubled him, neither a pretty 
girl’s face, nor a wish for rank and riches, only 
the legend of the lost wealth disturbed him. For 
to others it was a legend, but to him it was truth, 
which danced before his eyes like a Jack-o’- 


125 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


lantern; he could neither grasp it nor leave it 
alone ; yet there it was by day and by night, and 
he heard in his dreams a voice saying: “ You are 
a millionaire !” 

When he wrote out miserable little bills for ten 
or fifteen florins, these words seemed to dance 
before him on the paper : 

“ Lay down your pen, Gyuri Wibra, you have 
treasures enough already, heaven only knows 
how much. Your father saved it up for you, 
so you have a right to it. You are a rich man, 
Gyuri, and not a poor lawyer. Throw away those 
deeds and look for your treasure. Where are 
you to look for it? Why, that is just the ques- 
tion that drives one mad. Perhaps sometimes, 
when you are tired out, and throw yourself down 
on the ground to rest, it may be just beneath 
you, it is, perhaps, just beginning to get warm 
under your hand when you take it away to do 
something else, and it may be you will never find 
it at all. And what a life you could lead, what 
a lot you could do with the money. You could 
drive a four-in-hand, drink champagne, keep a 
lot of servants. A new world, a new life would 
be open to you. And to possess all this you only 
need a little luck ; but as you have none at present, 
take up your pen again, my friend, and go on 
writing out deeds and bills, and squeezing a few 
florins out of the poor Slovaks.” 

126 


The Umbrella Again 

It was a great pity he had heard anything about 
the missing treasure. He felt it himself, and often 
said he wished he knew nothing about it, and 
would be very glad if something were to happen 
which would go to prove that the treasure did 
not really exist; for instance, if some one would 
remark : 

“ Oh, yes, I met old Gregorics once in Monte 
Carlo; he was losing his money as fast as he 
could.” 

But no such thing happened; on the contrary, 
new witnesses were always turning up to assure 
him : “ Old Gregorics must certainly have left an 
immense fortune, which he intended you to have. 
Don’t you really know anything about it?” 

No, he knew nothing at all about it, but his 
thoughts were always running on the subject, 
spoiling all his pleasure in life. The promising 
youth had really become only half a man, for he 
had two separate and distinct persons in him. 
Sometimes he entirely gave himself up to the idea 
that he was the child of a servant, and began to 
feel he had attained to a really good position by 
means of his own work, and was happy and con- 
tented in this thought. But only a word was 
needed to make the lawyer a totally different man. 
He was now the son of rich old Pal Gregorics, 
waiting to find and take possession of his prop- 
erty. And from time to time he suffered all the 


I2 Z 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


pangs of Tantalus, and left his office to look after 
itself for weeks at a time, while he went to Vienna 
to look up some of his father’s old acquaintances. 

The rich carriage-builder, who had bought 
Gregorics’s house in Vienna, gave him valuable 
information. V j 

“ Your father,” he said, “ once told me when 
I paid him for the house, that he should put the 
money in some bank, and asked me which would 
be the best and safest way to set to work about it.” 

Gyuri wandered then from one bank to another, 
but without success. Thoroughly worn out he 
returned to Besztercebanya with the full intention 
of not thinking any more about the subject. 

“ I am not going on making a fool of myself,” 
he said. “ I won’t let the Golden Calf go on 
lowing in my ears forever. I will not take another 
step in the affair, and shall imagine I dreamed 
it all.” 

But it was easier said than done. You can 
throw ashes on a smouldering fire — it will put 
it out, but not prevent it smoking. 

Sometimes one friend referred to it, sometimes 
another. His mother, who now walked on 
crutches, often spoke of the good old times, sitting 
in her arm-chair by the fire. And at length she 
owned that old Gregorics had wanted to tele- 
graph for Gyuri on his deathbed. 

“ He seemed as though he could not die till he 

128 


The Umbrella Again 


had seen you,” she said. “ But it was my fault 
you came too late.” 

“ And why did he so much want to see me?” 

“ He said he wanted to give you something.” 

A light broke in upon Gyuri’s brain. The 
Vienna carriage-builder had given him to under- 
stand that his father’s fortune was represented 
by a receipt for money placed in a bank, and from 
the information his mother now gave him, he 
concluded that the old gentleman had intended 
giving him the receipt before his death. So he 
must always have kept it by him. But what had 
become of it ? In which bank was the money de- 
posited? Could he, knowing what he did, give 
up the idea of finding it ? 

No, no, it was impossible ! It could not be lost ! 
Why, a grain of wheat, if dropped in a ditch, 
would reappear in time, however unexpectedly. 
And in a case of this kind, a chance word, a sign, 
could clear up every doubt. 

He had not long to wait. One day, the dying 
mayor of the town, Tamas Krikovszky, sent for 
him to make his will. Several people, holding 
high positions in the town, were assembled in the 
room. There lay the mayor, pale and weak, but 
he still seemed to retain some of the majesty of 
his office, in the manner in which he took leave 
of his inferiors in office, recommending the wel- 
fare of the town to them, and then taking from 


129 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


under his pillow the official seal, he put it into 
their hands, saying: 

“ For twenty years I have sealed the truth 
with it!” 

Then he dictated his will to Gyuri, and while 
doing so, referred now and then to various inci- 
dents in his life. 

“ Dear me, what times those were,” he said 
once, addressing himself to Gyuri. “ Your father 
had a red umbrella, with a hollow handle, in 
which he used to carry valuable papers from one 
camp to another, in the days when he was a spy.” 

“ What !” stammered Gyuri. “ The red um- 
brella ?” and his eyes shone. 

Like a flash of lightning a thought had entered 
his head. The receipt was in that umbrella ! His 
blood began to course madly in his veins, as the 
certitude of the truth of his suspicion grew upon 
him. Yes, there it was, he was sure of it ; and all 
at once he remembered the incident in Szeged, 
how Gregorics had let his umbrella fall in the 
water, his anxiety, and offer of a large reward 
for its discovery. Then again, the old gentleman’s 
words rang in his ear : 

“ The umbrella will once belong to you, and 
you will find it useful to protect you from the 
rain.” 

The bystanders could not imagine why Gyuri 
seemed so much put about at the mayor’s death; 


130 


The Umbrella Again 


in their opinion it was quite right of the old man 
to take his departure, he had dragged on with 
his gouty old leg quite long enough, and should 
now make room for younger men; he had not 
lived his life for nothing, for were they not going 
to have his portrait painted and hung in the Town 
Hall, a grand ending to his life? If he lived for 
ten years longer he could have no greater honor 
done him, and his portrait would be even uglier 
than now. 

They were even more surprised at the strange 
question which Gyuri, in spite of the solemnity of 
the occasion, put to the dying man. 

“ And was the hole big, sir ?” 

“What hole?” asked the mayor, who had al- 
ready forgotten the subject. 

“ The hole in the handle of the umbrella.” 

“ I really don’t know, I never asked Gregorics.” 

He closed his eyes, and in a weak voice added, 
with that phlegma which only a Hungarian dis- 
plays on his deathbed : 

“ But if you wait a bit, I’ll ask him.” 

And he probably kept his promise, for half an 
hour later a black flag was flying from the roof 
of the Town Hall, and the bell of the Roman 
Catholic church was tolling. 

Gyuri Wibra had hurried home, nervous and 
excited, and was now marching up and down his 
office, his heart beating wildly with joy. 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


“ I have the treasure at last !” he kept on repeat- 
ing to himself, “ at least, I should have it if I had 
the umbrella. But where is it ?” He could neither 
eat, nor drink, nor sleep till he had settled it. He 
questioned his mother on the subject, and she did 
her best to answer him, but could only repeat : 

“ How am I to remember that, my dear boy, 
after so long a time? And what do you want 
that ragged umbrella for? ,, 

Gyuri sighed. 

“ If I have to dig it out of the ground with 
my ten fingers, I will do it.” 

“ Perhaps Matyko will remember something 
about it?” 

Matyko was soon found; he sat smoking his 
pipe in the anteroom of the office, for he was now 
Gyuri’s servant. But he also said he had forgotten 
far more important things than that in all these 
years; but this much he did remember, that the 
dead man had kept the umbrella near him till the 
hour of his death. 

“ Heaven only knows,” he added, “ why he 
took such care of the ragged old thing.” 

(Not only heaven knew the reason now, but 
Gyuri too!) 

He got more information from the old woman 
who kept the grocer’s shop in old Gregorics's 
house; she had been in the house when he died, 
and had helped to lay him out. She swore by 

132 


The Umbrella Again 

heaven and earth that the umbrella had been 
tightly clutched in the dead man’s hand, and they 
had had the greatest difficulty in freeing it from 
his grasp. 

“ Yes,” said the old woman, “ the umbrella 
was certainly in his hand, may I never move from 
this spot if it is not true.” 

“ It is all the same,” muttered Gyuri ; “ we want 
to know where it is now.” 

“ I suppose it was sold with the rest of the 
things.” 

That seemed very likely, so Gyuri went and 
looked up the list of things that had been sold at 
the auction. All sorts of things were mentioned 
— tables, chairs, cupboards, coats, etc. — but there 
was no mention of an umbrella. He read it over 
ten times, but it was of no use, he could find no 
mention of it, unless the following could be con- 
sidered as such. 

“ Various useless objects, bought for two 
florins by the white Jew.” 

Perhaps the umbrella was one of those useless 
objects, and had been bought by the “ white Jew.” 
Well, the first thing was to find the “ white Jew.” 
But who was he? For in those good old days 
there were not as many Jews in Hungary as there 
are now; there were perhaps one or two in the 
town, so it was easy to find them; for one was 
called “ red,” another “ gray,” another “ white,” 


*33 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


a fourth “ black/’ according to the color of their 
hair ; and by means of these four colors the towns- 
folk were able to distinguish any Jew who lived 
in their town. But now there were some hundred 
Jewish families, and heaven had not increased the 
shades of their hair to such an extent that each 
family could be distinguished in the old way. 

It was not difficult to find out about the old 
Jew, and Gyuri soon knew that he was called 
Jonas Muncz, and it was very likely he had 
bought the things, for all the coats and vests 
found their way into his tiny shop in Wheat 
Street, before starting on the second chapter of 
their existence. 

Many people remember the little shop in which 
top-boots, cloaks, and dresses hung on nails, and 
the following announcement was written with 
chalk on the door : 

“ Only the lilies of the field can dress them- 
selves cheaper than you can in this shop !” 

(That was quite true, only with this difference, 
that the lilies of the field were more becomingly 
dressed than Miincz’s customers.) 

In spite of all this information Gyuri was by 
no means satisfied, so he walked across the road 
to his old guardian’s to see if he could find out 
anything more on the subject from him, for he 
had been the first lawyer in the town for many 
years, and must know every one. 


134 


The Umbrella Again 


The young man told Sztolarik the whole story, 
openly and frankly, adding that the receipt for 
the money, which was probably deposited in some 
foreign bank, was all but found, for it was most 
certainly in the handle of the red umbrella, and 
that had in all probability been bought by an old 
Jew of the name of Jonas Miincz. All of this 
Gyuri poured out quickly and breathlessly into 
the ears of his old guardian. 

“ That much I know. Now, what am I to do 
next ?” 

“ It is a great deal, much more than I ever 
hoped for. You must continue the search.” 

“ But where am I to search? We don’t yet 
know where Miincz is, and even if we had him, 
who knows on which dust-heap the umbrella has 
rotted since then?” 

“ All the same, you must not lose the thread.” 

“ Did you know the ‘ white Jew’?” 

“ Oh, yes ; he was a very honest Jew, that is 
why he never got very rich. He often came to 
me ; I can see him now, with his head bald at the 
back, and a fringe of white hair round it. ’Pon 
my word! (and here the lawyer skipped like a 
young lamb) the last time I saw him he had Pal 
Gregorics’s umbrella in his hand; I can swear to 
it, and I remember I joked him about it. ‘ It 
seems to me, Jonas,’ I said, 4 that you wander 
about the next world, too, to buy “ ole clo’,” and 


135 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


bought that umbrella there of Pal Gregorics/ At 
which he smiled, and said he had not gone as far 
as that yet, for he only kept to the two counties 
of Zolyom and Hont, and had divided the neigh- 
boring counties among his sons; Moricz had 
Trencsin and Nyitra, Szami had Szepes and Lipto, 
and the youngest, Kobi, had only last week been 
given Bars, but they none of them intended to 
go into the next world until they were obliged to.” 

Gyuri’s eyes shone with delight. 

“ Bravo, Sztolarik !” he exclaimed, “ only the 
gods had such memories as you have.” 

“You are a lucky fellow, Gyuri. I have an 
impression we are on the right track at last, and 
that you will find the money.” 

“ I begin to think so too,” answered Gyuri, who 
was in turns optimist or pessimist, as the occasion 
presented itself. 

“ But what can have become of old Miincz?” 

“We Christians have a legend about the Jews 
which says, that on the Long Day every year a 
Jew disappears from the earth and is never seen 
again. Old Jonas disappeared thus fourteen years 
ago (you may be sure none of the Rothschilds 
will disappear in that way). His wife and chil- 
dren waited for him in vain, Jonas never returned. 
So his sons set out to look for him, and it turned 
out the old fellow had got soft-headed, and had 
taken to wandering about in the Slovak villages, 

136 


The Umbrella Again 


where the sons now and then heard of him from 
people who had seen him ; and then one day, they 
found his dead body in the Garam. ,, 

The young lawyer’s face was clouded again. 

“ Why, in that case the umbrella will be in the 
Garam too, probably.” 

“ Perhaps not,” was the answer. “ He may 
have left it at home, and if so, it will still be 
among the old rags and bones of the Muncz’s, for 
I am sure no one would ever buy it. Try your 
luck, my boy! If I were you I would get into 
a carriage, and drive and drive until . . .” 

“ But where am I to drive to?” 

“ Yes, of course, of course.” 

Then, after a minute’s thought : 

“ Muncz’s sons have gone out into the world, 
and the boxes of matches with which they started 
have probably become houses since then. But I’ll 
tell you what; go to Babaszek, their mother lives 
there.” 

“ Whereabouts is Babaszek ?” 

“ Quite near to Zolyom, among the mountains. 
There is a saying that all the sheep there were 
frozen to death once, in the dog-days.” 

“And are you sure Mrs. Miincz lives there?” 

“ Quite sure. A few years ago they came and 
fetched her away to be the 'Jewess of Babaszek.’ ” 


CHAPTER II. 


OUR ROSALIA. 

Yes, they had taken old Mrs. Miincz to Babas- 
zek to be their “ Jew/' with forty florins salary, 
for they had no Jew there, and had to find one 
at any cost. 

This is how it came to pass (and it is difficult 
for an inhabitant of Budapest to understand it). 
Babaszek was one of those small towns which 
in reality was only a larger village, though it 
rejoiced in what it called its “ mayor/’ and on 
one day in the year a few miserable horses, cows, 
and pigs were driven in from the neighboring 
farms and villages, and the baker from Zolyom 
put up a tent, in which he sold gingerbread in 
the shape of hearts, of soldiers, of cradles, all of 
which was soon bought up by the young men and 
fathers of families and taken home to sweethearts 
or children, as the case might be. In one word, 
there was a fair at Babaszek. And for centuries 
every inhabitant has divided the year and its 
events into two parts, one before the fair, and 

138 


Our Rosalia 


one after it. For instance, the death of Francis 
Deak took place just two days after the fair at 
Babaszek. And the reason of all this was, that 
the old kings of Hungary who lived during the 
hunting season in the castles of Zolyom and 
Vegles, instead of making grants to the inhabi- 
tants, raised the villages to the position of towns. 

Well, of course, it was a privilege, for in a town 
everything seems grander than in a village, and 
is worth a good deal more, even man himself. 
The little straw-thatched house in which questions 
of moment are discussed is called the Town Hall, 
and the “ hajdu” (town-servant) must know how 
to beat a drum (for the town has a drum of its 
own), the richer ones even have a small fire- 
engine. After all, position is position, and one 
must do all one can to keep it up. Zolyom and 
Tot-Pelsoc were rivals. 

“ That’s not a town,” said the latter of- the 
former ; “ why, they have not even a chemist 
there!” (Well, after all, not every village or 
town can be as big as Besztercebanya or London !) 

Pelsoc could not even leave poor little Babaszek 
alone. 

“ That is no town,” they said. “ There is not 
even a single Jew there. If no Jew settle in a 
town, it cannot be considered as such; it has, in 
fact, no future.” 

But it is not my intention now to write about 
139 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


the quarrels of two small towns, I only want to 
tell you how Mrs. Miincz came to live in Babaszek. 

Well, they sent word to her in Besztercebanya, 
to come and take possession of the little shop just 
opposite the market-place near the smithy, the 
best position in the town. On either side of the 
door was written in colored letters : “ Soap, whips, 
starch, scrubbing-brushes, nails, salt, grease, saf- 
fron, cinnamon, linseed oil in fact, the names of 
all those articles which did not grow in the neigh- 
borhood, or were not manufactured there. So 
that is how Mrs. Miincz came to live in Babaszek, 
where she was received with great honors, and 
made as comfortable as possible. It is a wonder 
they did not bring her into the town in triumph 
on their shoulders, which would have been no 
joke, for she weighed at least two hundredweight. 

Some of the townsfolk were very discontented 
that the mayor had only brought a Jewess into 
the town, and not a Jew, for it would sound 
grander if they could say: “ Our Jew says this, 
or our Moricz or Tobias did that,” than if they 
had said : “ Our Rosalia says this, that, or the 
other;” it sounds so very mild. They would have 
liked a Jew with a long beard, and hooked nose, 
and red hair if possible; that was the correct 
thing ! 

But Mr. Konopka, the cleverest senator in the 
town, who had made the contract with Mrs. 


140 


Our Rosalia 


Miincz, and who had even gone himself to fetch 
her and her luggage from Besztercebanya with 
two large carts, the horses of which had flowers 
and rosettes on, coldly repudiated these aspersions 
on their Jewess, with an argument which struck 
as heavily as the stones in David’s sling. 

“ Don’t be so foolish,” he said. “ If a woman 
was once king in Hungary, why should not a 
Jewess fill the place of Jew in Babaszek?” 

(This was a reference to the words of the 
nation addressed to Maria Theresa: “We will 
fight for our ‘ king’ and our country.”) 

Of course they soon saw the truth of this, and 
ceased grumbling; and they were in time quite 
reconciled to their Jewess, for every year, on the 
Feast of Tents, all Mrs. Muncz’s sons, seven in 
number, came to see their mother, and walked 
about the market-place in their best clothes, laced 
boots, and top-hats. The townsfolk were glad 
enough then, their hearts swelled with pride as 
they gazed at the seven Jews, and they would 
exclaim : 

“ Well, if this is not a town, what is?” 

“ You won’t see as many Jews as that in Pelsoc 
in ten years,” answered another proudly. 

Old Mrs. Miincz feasted her eyes on her sons 
when she sat, as she usually did, in the doorway of 
her shop, her knitting in her hands, her spectacles 
on her nose (those spectacles lent her an additional 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


charm in the eyes of her admirers). She was 
a pleasant-looking old woman in her snow-white 
frilled cap, and seemed to suit her surroundings, 
the whitewashed walls of the neighboring houses, 
the important-looking Town Hall, and no one 
could pass her without raising their hat, just as 
they did before the statue of St. John Nepomuk. 
(Those were the only two things worth seeing 
in Babaszek.) 

Every one felt that the little old woman would 
have her share in the success of the town. 

“ Good-morning, young woman. How are 
you ?” 

“ Very well, thank you, my child.” 

“ How is business, young woman ?” 

“ Thank you, my child, I get on very well.” 

They were all glad, oh, so glad, that the “ young 
woman” was so healthy and strong, and that she 
got richer day by day; they boasted of it where- 
ever they went. 

“ Our Rosalia is getting on well. It is easy to 
get on in Babaszek, we are good-natured people.” 

They really made things very comfortable for 
Rosalia. She was over seventy, but they still 
called her “ mlada pani” (young woman). As 
the king reserves to himself the right of confer- 
ring various titles, so the people have adopted the 
plan of conferring the “ title of youth,” and make 
use of it when and where they like. 


142 


Our Rosalia 


Well, as I said before, they took great care of 
Rosalia, and when, a few years after her arrival 
there, she decided to build a stone house, every 
one who owned a cart placed it at her disposal, 
for the carting of stones, sand, wood, etc. ; the 
bricklayers gave a day’s work without wages; 
only one or two of the lazier ones did not join 
the rest on that day, but were sent to Coventry 
for it. 

“ Good-for-nothing fellows,” said every one, 
“ they have no respect for any one, neither for 
God, the priest, nor a Jew!” 

Their respect went so far as to make them (at 
the mayor’s instigation) set apart two pieces of 
ground, one for a (future) synagogue, and one 
for a Jewish burial-ground (for the one Jewess 
they had in the town) . But what did that matter ? 
They had the future before them, and who could 
tell what it held for them? And it was so nice 
to be able to say to strangers : “ Just a stone’s 
throw from the Jewish burial-ground,” or “ near 
to the foundation of the Synagogue,” etc. And 
the inhabitants of the villages round about would 
say when the good folks turned their backs: 
“ Poor things ! Their brains have been turned 
with the joy of having a Jew in their town!” 


CHAPTER III. 

THE TRACES LEAD TO GLOGOVA. 

One fine spring afternoon, a light sort of dog- 
cart stopped before Mrs. Miincz’s shop, and a 
young man sprang out of it, Gyuri Wibra, of 
course. 

Rosalia, who was just standing at her door, 
speaking to Mr. Mravucsan, the mayor, and Mr. 
Galba, one of the senators, immediately turned 
to the young man with the question : 

“ What can I do for you, sir?” 

“ Are you Mrs. Miincz ?” 

“ Yes, sir.” 

“ I want to buy an umbrella.” 

The two gentlemen, surprised, looked up at the 
cloudless sky. 

“ What the devil does he want to buy an um- 
brella for?” muttered Mravucsan. 

Then added aloud: 

“Where are you from, sir?” 

“ From Besztercebanya.” 

Mravucsan was even more surprised. 


144 


The Traces Lead to Glogova 


Fancy any one coming all the way from Besz- 
tercebanya to Babaszek to buy an umbrella ! How 
proud he was it had happened under his mayor- 
ship ! He nudged Galba : 

“ Do you hear ?” he said. 

“ This is only a small village shop, sir,” 
answered Rosalia. “ We don’t keep umbrellas.” 

“ Pity enough !” muttered Mravucsan, biting 
savagely at his mustache. 

“ But I heard/’ went on the stranger, “ that 
you had second-hand umbrellas to sell.” 

Second-hand umbrellas ! Well, what next ! 

Mravucsan, who was asthmatic, began to 
breathe heavily, and was just going to say some- 
thing disparaging to the stranger, when some 
runaway horses attracted his attention, as they 
rushed across the market-place, dragging a hand- 
some phaeton with them. 

“ That will never be fit for use again,” said 
the smith, as he stood looking on, his hands folded 
under his leather apron. 

The phaeton had probably been dashed against 
a wall, for the left side was smashed to bits, the 
shaft was broken, one of the wheels had been left 
somewhere on the road, and the reins were drag- 
ging on the ground between the two horses. 

“ They are beautiful animals,” said Galba. 

“ They belong to the priest of Glogova,” 
answered Mravucsan. “ I’m afraid some one 


145 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


may have been thrown out of the carriage ; let us 
go and see.” 

During this time the number of customers in 
Mrs. Miincz’s shop had increased, and as they had 
to be attended to, she first turned to the stranger 
before serving them, and said : 

“ There are a lot of old umbrellas somewhere 
on the loft, but they would not do for a fine 
gentleman like you.” 

“ I should like to look at them all the 
same.” 

Mrs. Muncz had her hand on the door to let her 
customers in, and only answered without turning 
round : 

“ I can assure you you would not take them in 
your hand.” 

But/the young man was not to be put off so 
easily; jhe followed her into the shop, and waited 
till the customers were all served, then re- 
marked again that he would like to see the um- 
brellas. 

“ But, my good sir, don’t bother me about the 
umbrellas. I tell you they would be of no use 
to you. They are some that were left from the 
time of my poor husband ; he knew how to mend 
umbrellas, and most of these are broken and torn, 
and they certainly will not have improved, lying 
on the dusty loft so long. Besides, I cannot show 
you them, for my son is at the fair, the servant 

146 


The Traces Lead to Glogova 


has a bad foot and cannot move, and when there 
is a fair my shop is always full, so I cannot leave 
it to go with you. ,, 

The young lawyer took a five-florin note out 
of his pocket. 

“ I don’t want you to do it for nothing, Mrs. 
Muncz, but I must see the umbrellas at any price. 
So let me go up alone to the loft, and please take 
this in return for your kindness.” 

Mrs. Muncz did not take the money, and her 
small black eyes examined the young man sus- 
piciously. 

“ Now I shall certainly not show you the 
umbrellas.” 

“ And why not ?” 

“ My poor dead husband used to say : ‘ Rosalia, 
never do anything you don’t understand the 
reason of/ and my husband was a very clever 
man.” 

“ Of course, of course, you are quite right, and 
can’t understand why I offer five florins for an 
old ragged umbrella.” 

“ Just so ; for five florins you might see some- 
thing better.” 

“ Well, it is very simple after all. My father 
had a very old umbrella, to which he was much 
attached, and I heard that it had come by chance 
into your husband’s hands, and I should very 
much like to have it as a souvenir.” 


147 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


“ And who was your father, sir ? Perhaps I 
may have heard of him.” 

The lawyer blushed a little. 

“ Pal Gregorics,” he said. 

“ Ah, Gregorics! Wait a bit! Yes, I remem- 
ber, the funny little man in whose will . . 

“ Yes, yes. He left 2000 florins to nine ladies 
in Besztercebanya.” 

“ I remember, but I don’t think he was . . 

“ Yes ... no ... of course not ... I 
mean . . .” and here he stopped in confusion. 
“ I am Gyuri Wibra, lawyer.” 

Now it was Mrs. Miincz’s turn to be confused. 

“ Of course, sir, I understand. How stupid 
of me! I have heard of you, sir, and I knew 
your poor father; dear me, how very like him 
you are, and yet so handsome. I knew him very 
well,” she added, smiling, “ though he did not 
leave me 2000 florins. I was an old woman when 
he was still young. Well, sir, please go up and 
look at the umbrellas. I will show you the way, 
and tell you just where to look for them. Follow 
me, please, and I hope you will find the old gentle- 
man’s umbrella.” 

“ I would give you fifty florins for it, Mrs. 
Muncz.” 

At the words “ fifty florins” the old woman’s 
eyes shone like two glowworms. 

“ Oh ! what a good son !” she sighed, turning 

148 


The Traces Lead to Glogova 


her eyes up to heaven. “ There is nothing more 
pleasing to God than a good son, who honors the 
memory of his father.” 

She got quite active and lively at the thought 
of the fifty florins, and shutting the door of the 
shop, she tripped across the yard with Gyuri to 
the ladder of the loft, and even wanted to go up 
with him herself. 

£:• “ No, no, . stay down below, Mrs. Miincz. 
What would the world say, if we two were to go 
up to the loft together?” said Gyuri jokingly. 

Old Rosalia chuckled. 

“ Oh, dear heart alive !” she said, “ there’s no 
danger with me. Why, your father didn’t even 
remember me in his will, though once upon a time 
. . . (and here she complacently smoothed her 
gray hair). Well, my dear, please go up.” 

Gyuri Wibra searched about among the rubbish 
on the loft for quite half an hour, during which 
time the old woman came twice to the foot of the 
ladder to see if he were coming down. She was 
anxious about the fifty florins. 

“Well?” she asked, as he appeared at last 
empty-handed. 

“ I have looked through everything,” he said, 
in a discouraged tone, “ but the umbrella I want 
is not among the others.” 

The old Jewess looked disappointed. 

“ What can that tiresome Jonas have done with 


149 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


it?” she exclaimed. “ Fifty florins ! Dreadful! 
But he never had a reason for anything he did.” 

“ In all probability your husband used that 
umbrella himself. Mr. Sztolarik of Beszterce- 
banya says he distinctly remembers seeing him 
with it once.” 

“ What was it like ?” 

“ The stuff was red, with patches of all sorts 
on it, and it had a pale green border. The stick 
was of black wood, with a bone handle.” 

“ May I never go to heaven !” exclaimed 
Rosalia, “ if that was not the very umbrella he 
took with him last time he left home! Yes, I 
know he took that one !” 

“ It was a great pity he took just that one.” 

Rosalia felt bound to defend her husband. 

“ How was he to know that?” she said. “ He 
never had a reason for anything he did.” 

“ Well, there’s no help for it now,” sighed 
Gyuri, as he stood on the last rung of the ladder, 
wondering what he was to do next, and feeling 
like Marius among the ruins of Carthage, only 
there were not even ruins to his Carthage; all 
hopes had returned to the clouds from which they 
had been taken. 

Slowly he walked through the shop to his 
dog-cart, which was waiting outside, and the old 
woman waddled after him, like a fat goose. But 
once out in the street, she suddenly seemed to 


The Traces Lead to Glogova 


wake up, and seized hold of the lawyer’s 
coat. 

“ Wait a bit. I had nearly forgotten it, but 
my son Moricz, who is a butcher in Ipolysag, was 
here at the time; he had come to buy oxen, I 
remember. My son Moricz knows everything, 
and may I never go to heaven (Rosalia evidently 
had a strong objection to leaving this world) if 
he can’t throw some light on the subject. Go to 
the fair, my dear boy, to the place where the sheep 
stand, and speak to the handsomest man you see 
there, that will be my son Moricz ; he’s handsome, 
very handsome, is Moricz. Speak to him, and 
promise him the fifty florins. I am sure he once 
told me something about that umbrella. For when 
my poor dear Jonas died, Moricz went to look for 
him, and when he found traces of him, he went 
from village to village making inquiries, till 
everything was clear. (Here Rosalia gazed tear- 
fully heavenward.) Oh, Jonas, Jonas, why did 
you treat us so ? If your senses had left you, why 
must you follow them? You had enough sons 
who would have taken care of you !” 

She would have gone on like this all day, if 
Gyuri had not stepped into his dog-cart and 
driven off to the scene of the fair as she had 
advised him. 

After putting a few questions to the bystanders, 
he found Moricz Miincz, a short, stout man, his 

151 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


pock-marked face looking like a turkey’s egg. He 
was as ugly as a Faun. His butcher’s knife and 
steel hung from a belt round his waist, and on his 
arm was tattooed the head of an ox. 

He was just bargaining for a cow, and its 
owner, a tanner, was swearing by heaven and 
earth that such a cow had never been seen in 
Babaszek before. 

“ It will eat straw,” he assured him, “ and yet 
give fourteen pints of milk a day !” 

“ Rubbish !” answered Moricz. “ I’m not a 
calf, and don’t intend to look upon this cow as 
my mother. I’m a butcher, and want to kill it 
and weigh it.” 

“ That’s true,” said the honest tanner ; and of 
his own free will he lowered the price by five 
florins. 

Moricz did not seem to think that enough, and 
began poking at the ribs of the cow. 

“ What bones !” he exclaimed, and then pulled 
open its mouth to look at its teeth. “ Why, it has 
not got a tooth in its head !” 

“ What do you want it to have teeth for ?” 
asked the honest tanner. “I don’t suppose you 
want to weigh its teeth too ?” 

“ But it kicks!” 

"Well, it won’t kick once it is killed; and I 
don’t suppose you want to weigh it before it is 
killed?” 


152 


The Traces Lead to Glogova 


The honest tanner laughed at his own wit, 
which had put him into such a good humor, that 
he again took five florins off the price. But 
Moricz was not yet satisfied, for he still gazed 
at the cow, as though trying to find more faults 
in her. And just at that moment Gyuri Wibra 
called out: 

“ Mr. Miincz, I should like to have a word with 
you.” 

The tanner, fearing to lose his purchaser, took 
five florins more off the price, and Moricz, being 
a sensible man, at once struck the bargain; he 
always bought of an evening from such as had 
not been able to sell their cattle during the day, 
and gave it for a low price to save their having 
to drive it home again. 

“ What can I do for you, sir ?” 

“ I should like to buy something of you, which 
belongs neither to you nor to me.” 

“ There are plenty of things in the world 
answering to that description,” said Moricz, 
“ and I can assure you, I will let you have it as 
cheap as possible.” 

“ Let us move on a bit.” 

Gyuri led him out of the crowd to the village 
pump, near which grew an elder-tree. This tree, 
round which they had put some palings, was also 
a part of the future greatness of Babaszek, for 
the green, evil-smelling insects which housed in 


153 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


its branches, and which are used in various medi- 
cines (Spanish flies), induced them to believe that 
they might, once upon a time, have a chemist in 
Babaszek. The young girls of the town used to 
collect the insects, and sell them to the chemist 
at Zolyom for a few kreutzers ; but that was for- 
bidden now, for the people had decided : “ Near 
that tree there will once be a chemist’s shop, so 
we will not have the insects taken away.” 

They evidently considered them the foundation 
of the future chemist’s store. 

Gyuri told the Jew what he wanted; that he 
was interested in his father’s favorite umbrella, 
and would buy it if he could find it. Did Moricz 
know anything about it? 

“ Yes, I do,” was the disappointed answer, for 
now he knew what a trifle it was, he saw the price 
fall in proportion. 

“ I will give you fifty florins for any informa- 
tion that will lead to its discovery.” 

Moricz quickly took off his cap, which until 
now he had not considered it necessary to remove. 
Fifty florins for an old umbrella! Why, this 
young man must be the Prince of Coburg himself 
from Szent- Antal ! Now he noticed for the first 
time how very elegantly he was dressed. 

“The umbrella can be found,” he said; and 
then added more doubtfully, “ I think.” 

“ Tell me all you know.” 


154 


The Traces Lead to Glogova 


“ Let me see, where shall I begin ? It is now 
about fourteen years since my father disappeared, 
and I have forgotten most of the details, but this 
much I remember, that I started to look for him 
with my brother Sami, and in Podhragy I found 
the first trace of him, and following this up, I 
was told that when there he was still quite in his 
right mind, had sold a few trifles to the villagers, 
slept at the inn, and had bought a very old seal 
from a certain Raksanyi for two florins. He 
must have had all his senses about him then, for 
when we took him out of the Garam, he had the 
seal in his coat pocket, and we sold it for fifty 
florins to an antiquary, as it turned out to be the 
seal of Vid Mohorai, of the time of King Arpad.” 

“ Yes, but these particulars have nothing to do 
with the subject in question/’ interrupted the 
young man. 

“You will see, sir, that they will be useful 
to you.” 

“ Well, perhaps so ; but I don’t see what they 
have to do with the umbrella.” 

“ You will see in time, if you will listen to the 
rest of my tale. I heard in Podhragy that he went 
from there to Abelova, so I went there too. From 
what I heard, I began to fear that my father was 
beginning to lose his senses, for he had always 
inclined toward melancholy. Here they told us 
that he had bought a lot of ‘ Angel Kreutzers’ 

155 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


(small coins, on which the crown of Hungary is 
represented, held by two angels ; they were issued 
in 1867, and many people wear them as amulets, 
and believe they bring luck) from the villagers 
for four kreutzers each; but later on I found I 
was mistaken in my surmise.” 

“ How was that? Was he not yet mad?” 

“ No, for a few days later, two young Jews 
appeared in Abelova, each bringing a bag of 
‘ angel kreutzers/ which they sold to the villagers 
for three kreutzers each, though they are really 
worth four.” 

“ So it is possible . . .” 

“ Not only possible, but certain, that the two 
young cheats had been told by the old man to buy 
up all the 4 angel kreutzers’ they could, and he 
thus became their confederate without knowing 
it. So it is very probable he may have been mad 
then, or he would have had nothing to do with 
the whole affair. From Abelova he went through 
the Viszoka Hor forest to Dolinka, but we could 
find out nothing about his doings, though he spent 
two days there. But in the next village, Sztrecs- 
nyo, the children ran after him, and made fun of 
him, like of the prophet Elijah, and he, unfasten- 
ing his pack (not the prophet Elijah, but my poor 
father), began throwing the various articles he 
had for sale at them. In fifty years’ time they will 
still remember that day in Sztrecsnyo, when soap, 

156 


The Traces Lead to Glogova 


penknives, and pencils fell among them like 
manna from heaven. Since then it is a very com- 
mon saying there : ‘ There was once a mad Jew 
in Sztrecsnyo.’ ” 

“ Bother Sztrecsnyo, let us return to our sub- 
ject.” 

“ I have nearly done now. In Kobolnyik my 
poor old father was seen without his pack ; in one 
hand he had his stick, in the other his umbrella, 
with which he drove off the dogs which barked 
at him. So in Kobolnyik he still had his umbrella 
you see.” 

Tears were rolling down Moricz’s pock-marked 
face, his heart was quite softened at the remem- 
brance of all these incidents. 

“After that we looked for a long time for traces 
of him, but only heard of him again in Lehota. 
One stormy summer night he knocked at the door 
of the watchman’s house, the last in the village, 
but when they saw he was a Jew, they drove him 
away. They told me he had neither a hat nor an 
umbrella then, only the heavy, rough stick he used 
to beat us with when we were children.” 

“ Now I begin to understand the drift of your 
remarks. You want to show that the umbrella 
was lost between Kobolnyik and Lehota.” 

“ Yes.” 

“ But that proves nothing, for your father may 
have lost it in the wood, or among the rocks, and 


157 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


if any one found it, they would probably make 
use of it to put in the arms of a scarecrow.” 

“ No, that is not it, I know what happened. 
I heard it by chance, for I was not looking for the 
umbrella ; what did I care for that ! I wanted to 
find my father. Well, among the Kvet mountains 
I met a tinker walking beside his cart, a very 
chatty man he seemed to be. I asked him, as I 
did every one we met, if he had not seen an old 
Jew about there lately. ‘Yes/ he answered, ‘ I 
saw him a few weeks ago in Glogova dur- 
ing a downpour of rain; he was spreading an 
umbrella over a child on the veranda of a 
small house, and when he had done so he moved 
on/ ” 

The lawyer sprang up hastily. 

“ Go on,” he cried.. 

“ There is nothing more to tell, sir. But from 
the description the tinker gave me, I am sure it 
was my father, and, besides, Glogova lies just 
between Lehota and Kobolnyik.” 

“ Well, you have given me valuable informa- 
tion,” exclaimed the lawyer, and, taking a fifty- 
florin note out of his pocketbook, he added: 
“ Accept this as a slight return for your kindness. 
Good-by.” 

And off he went like a hound which has just 
found the scent ; over some palings he vaulted, in 
order to get to his cart as quickly as possible. 

158 


The Traces Lead to Glogova 


On he raced, but as he passed the gingerbread 
stall, Moricz Miincz stood before him again. 

“ Excuse me for running after you,” he ex- 
claimed breathlessly, “but it suddenly occurred 
to me that I might give you a word of advice, 
which is this. There are a good many people 
from Glogova here at the fair, so you really might 
get the crier to go round and find out if they know 
anything of the umbrella. If you would promise 
a reward for any information, in an- hour's time 
you will have plenty, I am sure. In a small village 
like Glogova, every one knows everything.” 

“ It is quite unnecessary,” replied the lawyer, 
“ for I am going to Glogova myself. Thanks all 
the same.” 

“ Oh, sir, it is I who have to thank you ; you 
have behaved in a princely fashion. Fifty florins 
for such a trifle ! Why, I would have done it for 
one florin.” 

The lawyer smiled. 

“ And I would willingly have given a thousand, 
Mr. Miincz.” 

And with that he walked away, past the stall 
where they were selling nuts, and onions tied up 
in strings. Moricz stood gazing after him till he 
was out of sight. 

“ A thousand florins !” he repeated, shaking his 
head. “ If I had only known!” 

, And off he went, driving his cow before him. 


CHAPTER IV. 

THE EARRING. 

From the inn opposite Schramek’s house lively 
sounds proceeded. I beg pardon, I ought to call 
it “ hotel,” at least, that is the name the inhabi- 
tants of Babaszek delighted in giving it, and the 
more aristocratic of them always patronized it in 
preference to the other inns. The gypsies from 
Pelsoc were there, and the sound of their lively 
music could be heard far and wide through the 
open windows. Handsome Slovak brides in their 
picturesque dresses, with their pretty white head- 
gear, and younger girls with red ribbons plaited 
into their hair, all run in to join the dance, and 
if the room is too full, late-comers take up their 
position in the street and dance there. 

But curiosity is even stronger than their love 
of dancing, and all at once the general hopping 
and skipping ceases, as Janos Viala, the town- 
servant and crier, appears on the scene, his drum 
hung round his n#ck and his pipe in his mouth. 
He stops in front of the “ hotel,” and begins to 


The Earring 

beat his drum with might and main. What can 
have happened ? Perhaps the mayor’s geese have 
strayed? Ten or twelve bystanders begin to ply 
him with questions, but Fiala would not for the 
world take his beloved pipe out of his mouth, nor 
would he divulge state secrets before the right 
moment came. So he first of all beat his drum 
the required number of times, and then with 
stentorian voice, shouted the following: 

“ Be it known to all whom it may interest, that 
a gold earring, with a green stone in it (how was 
he to know it was called an emerald?), has been 
lost, somewhere between the brickfield and the 
church. Whoever will bring the same to the 
Town Hall will be handsomely rewarded.” 

Gyuri paused a moment at the sound of the 
drum, listened to the crier’s words, and then 
smiled at the look of excitement on the peasant 
girls’ faces. 

“ I wouldn’t give it back if I found it,” said 
one. 

“ I’d have a hairpin made of it,” said another. 

“ Heaven grant me luck !” said a third, turning 
her eyes piously heavenward. 

“ Don’t look at the sky, you stupid,” said an- 
other ; “ if you want to find it look at the ground.” 

But as chance would have it, some one found 
it who would rather not have done so, and that 
some one was Gyuri Wibra. He had only walked 

161 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


a few steps, when a green eye seemed to smile up 
at him from the dust under his feet. He stooped 
and picked it up ; it was the lost earring with the 
emerald in it. How tiresome, when he was in 
such a hurry ! Why could not one of those hun- 
dreds of people at the fair have found it? But 
the green eye looked so reproachfully at him, that 
he felt he could not give way to his first impulse 
and throw it back into the dust, to be trampled 
on by the cattle from the fair. Who wore such 
fine jewelry here? Well, whoever it belonged 
to, he must take it to the Town Hall; it was only 
a few steps from there after all. 

He turned in at the entrance to the Town Hall, 
where some watering-cans hung from the walls, 
and a few old rusty implements of torture were 
exhibited (sic transit gloria mundi!), went up the 
staircase, and entered a room where the Senators 
were all assembled round a green baize-covered 
table, discussing a serious and difficult question. 

A most unpleasant thing had happened. One 
of the watchmen in the Liskovina wood (the 
property of the town) had arrived there breath- 
lessly not long before, with the news that a well- 
dressed man had been found hanging on a tree 
in the wood ; what was to be done with the body ? 

This was what was troubling the worthy Sena- 
tors, and causing them to frown and pucker their 
foreheads. Senator Konopka declared that the 

162 


The Earring 


correct thing to do was to bring the body to the 
mortuary chapel, and at the same time give notice 
of the fact to the magistrate, Mr. Mihaly Gery, 
so that he could tell the district doctor to dissect 
the body. 

Galba shook his head. He was nothing if not 
a diplomat, as he showed in the present instance. 
He said he considered it would be best to say 
nothing about it, but to remove the body by night 
a little further on, to the so-called Kvaka Wood, 
which was in the Travnik district, and let them 
find the body. Mravucsan was undecided which 
of the two propositions to accept. He hummed 
and hawed and shook his head, and then com- 
plained it was hot enough to stifle one, that he 
had gout in his hand, and that one leg of the 
Senators’ table was shorter than the others. This 
latter was soon remedied by putting some old 
deeds under the short leg. Then they waited to 
see which side would have the majority, and as 
it turned out it was on Galba’s side. But the 
Galba party was again subdivided into two fac- 
tions. The strict Galba faction wanted the dead 
man’s body transported to the Travnik district. 
The moderated Galba faction, headed by Andras 
Kozsehuba, would have been contented with 
merely taking down the body, and burying it 
under the tree; they wanted, at all costs, to pre- 
vent its being carried through the village to the 

163 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


cemetery, which would certainly be the case if the 
magistrate were informed of the circumstances. 
For if a suicide were carried through a place, that 
place was threatened with damage by hail !” 

“ Superstitious rubbish !” burst out Konopka. 

“ Of course, of course, Mr. Konopka, but who 
is to help it if the people are so superstitious ?” 
asked Senator Fajka, of the Kozsehuba faction. 

Konopka wildly banged the table with his fat, 
be-ringed hand, upon which every one was quiet. 

“ It is sad enough to hear a Senator say such 
a thing! I can assure you, gentlemen, that the 
Lord will not send His thunder-clouds in our 
direction just on account of that poor dead body. 
He will not punish a thousand just men because 
one unfortunate man has given himself to the 
devil, especially as the dead man himself would 
be the only one not hurt by the hail !” 

Mravucsan breathed freely again at these wise 
words, which certainly raised one’s opinion of 
the magistrates; he hastened to make use of the 
opportunity, and as once the tiny wren, sitting 
on the eagle’s wings, tried to soar higher than the 
eagle, so did Mravucsan try to rise above the 
Senators. 

“ What is true is true,” he said, “ and I here- 
with beg to call your attention to the fact that 
there is nothing to be feared from hail if we bring 
the body through the town.” 

164 


The Earring 


Up sprang Mr. Fajka at these words. 

“ That is all the same to us,” he said ; “ if 
matters stand so, let us have hail by all means, for 
when once all the villagers are insured by the 
Trieste Insurance Company, I see no difference 
whether there is hail or not. In fact, it would be 
better if there were some, for, if I know the 
villagers well, they will immediately go and insure 
the harvest far beyond its worth if the dead body 
is taken through the village. So the hail would 
not be such a great misfortune, but the carriage 
of the corpse through the village would be.” 

He was a grand debater after all, that Senator 
Fajka, for he had again hit the right nail on the 
head, and at the same time enlightened the Galba 
and the Kozsehuba factions. 

“ What a brain !” they exclaimed. 

The word brain reminded Galba of the dissect- 
ing part of the business — per associationem 
idearum — and he at once began to discuss the 
point. 

“ Why dissect the man? We know who he is, 
for it is as plain as pie-crust that he is an agent 
for some Insurance Company, and has hanged 
himself here in our neighborhood in order to 
make people insure their harvest. It’s as clear as 
day!” 

“ You are mad, Galba,” said Konopka crossly. 

Upon which the Senators all jumped up from 

165 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


their places, and then the noise broke forth, or, as 
Fiala, the town-servant and crier, used to say, 
“ they began to boil the town saucepan,” and 
every eye was fixed on the mayor, the spoon which 
was to skim the superfluous froth. But the mayor 
drew his head down into the dark blue collar of 
his coat, and seemed quite to disappear in it; he 
gnawed his mustache, and stood there helplessly, 
wondering what he was to say and do now, when 
all at once the door opened, and Gyuri Wibra 
stood before them. In spite of all folks may say, 
the powers above always send help at the right 
moment. 

At sight of the stranger, who, an hour or two 
before, had wanted to buy an old umbrella of Mrs. 
Miincz, the mayor suddenly pushed back his chair 
and hurried toward him (let the Senators think 
he had some important business to transact with 
the new arrival). 

“ Ah, sir,” he said hurriedly, “ you were look- 
ing for me, I suppose ?” 

“ If you are the mayor, yes.” 

“ Of course, of course!” (Who else could be 
mayor in Babaszek but Mravucsan, he won- 
dered?) 

“ They have been crying the loss of an earring, 
and I have found it. Here it is.” 

The mayor’s face beamed with delight. 

“ Now that is real honesty, sir. That is what 

1 66 


The Earring 


I like. This is the first earring that has been lost 
since I have been in office, and even that is found. 
That’s what I call order in the district.” 

Then turning to the Senators, he went on : 

“ It is only an hour since I sent the crier round 
the town, and here we have the earring. They 
couldn’t manage that in Budapest!” 

Just then he noticed that the stranger was 
preparing to leave. 

“ Why, you surely don’t mean to leave us al- 
ready, sir? There is a reward offered for the 
finding of this earring.” 

“ I do not want the reward, thank you.” 

“ Oh, come, don’t talk like that, young man, 
don’t run away from luck when it comes in your 
way. You know the story of the poor man who 
gave his luck away to the devil without knowing 
it, and how sorry he was for it afterward ?” 

“ Yes, he was sorry for it,” answered the 
lawyer, smiling, as he remembered the fable, “ but 
I don’t think we can compare this case with that.” 

“ I am sure you have no idea to whom the 
earring belongs ?” 

“ Not the slightest. Whose is it?” 

“ It belongs to the sister of the Glogova priest.” 

Gyuri screwed up his mouth doubtfully. 

“ Don’t be too quick in your conclusions; just 
come here a minute; you won’t repent it.” 

“ Where am I to go?” 

167 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


“ Come into the next room.” 

The mayor wanted to keep him there at any 
cost, so as to gain time before deciding as to the 
dead man’s future. 

“ But, my dear sir, I have important business 
to get through.” 

“ Never mind, you must come in for a minute,” 
and with that he opened the door and all but 
pushed the young man into the other room. 

“ My dear young lady,” he called out over 
Gyuri’s shoulder, “ I have brought you your ear- 
ring !” 

At these words a young girl turned from her 
occupation of putting cold-water bandages on the 
shoulder of an elderly lady, lying on a sofa. Gyuri 
was not prepared for this apparition, and felt as 
confused and uncomfortable as though he had 
committed some indiscretion. The elder woman, 
partly undressed, was lying on a sofa, her 
wounded right shoulder (a remarkably bony one) 
was bare. The young man at the door stammered 
some apology, and turned to go, but Mravucsan 
held him back. 

“ Don’t go,” he said, “ they won’t bite you !” 

The young girl, who had a very pretty attrac- 
tive face, hastened to throw a cloak over her 
companion, and sprang up from her kneeling 
position beside the lady. What a figure she had ! 

1 68 


The Earring 


It seemed to Gyuri as though a lily, in all its 
simple grandeur, had risen before him. 

“ This gentleman has found your earring, and 
brought it you back, my dear.” 

A smile broke over her face (it was as though 
a ray of sunlight had found its way into the 
mayor's dark office), she blushed a little, and then 
made a courtesy, a real schoolgirl courtesy, awk- 
ward, and yet with something of grace in it. 

“ Thank you, sir, for your kindness. I am 
doubly glad to have found it, for I had given up 
all idea of ever seeing it again.” 

And taking it in her hand she gazed at it lov- 
ingly. She was a child still, you could see it in 
every movement. Gyuri felt he ought to say 
something, but found no suitable words. 

This child disconcerted him, but there was 
something delightful in her artless manner which 
quite charmed him. There he stood, helpless and 
speechless, as though he were waiting for some- 
thing. Was it the reward he wanted? The 
silence was getting painful, and the position 
awkward. At last the girl saw that the young 
man did not move, so she broke the silence. 

“ Oh dear ! I had nearly forgotten in my delight 
that I had offered ... I mean . . . how am I 
to say it?”. 

It now occurred to Gyuri that she was offering 
169 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


him the reward, so he thought it time to make 
known his name. 

“ I am Dr. Wibra,” he said, “ from Beszterce- 
banya.” 

“ Oh, how lucky !” exclaimed the girl, clapping 
her hands gleefully. “We are just in want of 
a doctor for poor madame.” 

This little misunderstanding was just what 
was wanted. Gyuri smiled. 

“ I am very sorry, my dear young lady ; I am 
not a doctor of medicine, but a doctor of law.” 

The young girl looked disappointed at this 
announcement, and blushed a little at her mistake ; 
but Mravucsan was quite excited. 

“ What’s that I hear? You are young Wibra, 
the noted lawyer? Well, that is nice! Who 
would have thought it? Now I understand. Of 
course, you are here to try and find out particulars 
about one of your cases. I might have thought 
of it when I met you at Mrs. Muncz’s. Of course 
a gentleman like you must have some special 
reason for buying an old umbrella. Well, the 
fates must have sent you here now, for we are 
discussing such a very difficult question in the 
next room, that our minds are too small for it. 
How strange, Miss Veronica, that your earring 
should be found by such a renowned lawyer.” 

Veronica stole a look at the “ renowned law- 
yer,” and noticed for the first time how handsome 


170 


The Earring 


he was, and how gentlemanly, and her heart 
began to beat at the thought that she had nearly 
offered him the five florins reward. 

Mravucsan hastened to offer the lawyer a chair, 
and cast an anxious look round his office, and 
remarked with horror what an untidy state it 
was in; deeds lying about everywhere, coats and 
cloaks, belonging to the Senators, empty glasses 
and bottles, for they were in the habit of drink- 
ing a glass now and then when they had settled 
some particularly important business, which was 
quite right of them, for the truth that emanated 
from them must be replaced by a fresh supply, 
and as the Hungarians say : “ There is truth in 

wine.” 

The sight of that office would really have dis- 
couraged Mr. Mravucsan if his eye had not at 
that moment fallen on the portrait of Baron 
Radvanszky, the lord lieutenant of the county, 
hanging on the wall in front of him. That, after 
all, lent some distinction to the room. He wished 
from his heart that the baron were there in person 
to see what an illustrious guest they were harbor- 
ing. But as the baron was not present, he felt it 
devolved on him to express his satisfaction at the 
fact. 

“ I am a poor man,” he said, “ but I would not 
accept a hundred florins in place of the honor that 
is done to my poor office to-day. It is worth 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


something to have the most renowned lawyer in 
the county, and the prettiest young lady . . 

“Oh, Mr. Mravucsan!” exclaimed Veronica, 
blushing furiously. 

“ Well,” said Mravucsan, “ what’s true is true. 
One need not be ashamed of being pretty. I was 
good-looking myself once, but I was never 
ashamed of it. Besides, a pretty face is of great 
use to one, isn’t it, Mr. Wibra?” 

“ Yes, it is a very lucky thing,” answered 
Gyuri quickly. 

Mravucsan shook his head. 

“ Let us simply say it is a great help, for luck 
can easily turn to misfortune, and misfortune to 
luck, as was the case now, for if it had not been 
for to-day’s accident, I should not now have the 
pleasure of seeing you all here.” 

“ What is that?” asked Gyuri. “ An accident?” 

Veronica was going to answer, but that talka- 
tive mayor put in his word again. 

“ Yes, there was an accident, but in a short 
time there will be no traces of it, for the earring 
is here, madame’s shoulder is here, it will be blue 
for some days, but what the devil does that 
matter, it is not the color makes the shoulder. 
And the carriage will be all right, too, when the 
smith has mended it.” 

“ So those horses that were running away with 
a broken carriage . . . ?” 


172 


The Earring 


“ Were ours/' said Veronica. “ They took 
fright near the brickfield, the coachman lost his 
hold of the reins, and when he stooped to gather 
them up, he was thrown out of the carriage. In 
our fright we jumped out too. I did not hurt my- 
self, but poor madame struck her shoulder on 
something. I hope it will be nothing serious. 
Does it hurt very much, Madame Krisbay?” 

Madame opened her small yellow eyes, which 
till then had been closed, and the first sight that 
met them was Veronica’s untidy hair. 

“Smooth your hair,” she said in French in 
a low voice, then groaned once or twice, and 
closed her eyes again. 

Veronica, greatly alarmed, raised her hand to 
her head, and found that one of her plaits was 
partly undone. 

“ Oh, my hair !” she exclaimed. “ The hairpins 
must have fallen out when I jumped out of the 
carriage. What am I to do?” 

“ Let down the other plait,” advised Mravuc- 
san. “ That’s it, my dear; it is much prettier so, 
isn’t it, Wibra?” 

“ Much prettier,” answered Gyuri, casting an 
admiring glance at the two black, velvety plaits, 
with a lovely dark bluish tinge on them, which 
hung nearly down to the edge of her millefleurs 
skirt. 

So that was the priest’s sister. He could hardly 
173 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


believe it, for he had imagined a fat, waddling, 
red-faced woman, smelling of pomade. That is 
what parish priests’ sisters are generally like. 
The lawyer thought it was time to start a con- 
versation. 

“ I suppose you were very frightened ?” 

“ Not very; in fact, I don’t think I was startled 
at all. But now I begin to fear my brother will 
be anxious about me.” 

“ The priest of Glogova ?” 

“ Yes. He is very fond of me, and will be so 
anxious if we do not return. And yet I hardly 
know how we are to manage it.” 

“ Well,” said Mravucsan, consolingly, “ we 
have the horses, and we will borrow a cart from 
some one.” 

Veronica shuddered and shook her head. 

“ With those horses ? Never again !” 

“ But, my dear young lady, you must never 
take horses seriously, they have no real character. 
You see, this is how it was. Near the brickfield 
there is that immense windmill, for of course 
every town must have one. The world is making 
progress, in spite of all Senator Fajka says. 
Well, as I said, there is the windmill. I had it 
built, for every one made fun of us because we 
had no water in the neighborhood. So I make 
use of the wind. Of course, the horses don’t 
understand that ; they are good mountain horses, 


174 


The Earring 


and had never seen a beast with such enormous 
wings, turning in the air, so of course they were 
frightened and ran away. You can’t wonder at 
it. But that is all over now, and they will take 
you quietly home.” 

“ No, no, I’m afraid of them. Oh, how dread- 
ful they were! If you had only seen them! I 
won’t go a step with them. As far as I am con- 
cerned, I could walk home, but poor Madame 
Krisbay . . ” 

“ Now that would be a nice sort of thing to 
do,” remarked Mravucsan. “ Fancy my allowing 
my best friend’s little sister to walk all the way 
home with those tiny feet of hers! How she 
would stumble and trip over the sharp stones in 
the mountain paths! And his reverence would 
say : ‘My friend Mravucsan is a nice sort of fellow 
to let my sister walk home, after all the good 
dinners and suppers I have given him.’ Why, I 
would rather take you home on my own back, 
my dear, right into Glogova parish!” 

Veronica looked gratefully at Mravucsan, and 
Gyuri wondered, if it came to the point, would 
Mravucsan be able to carry out his plan, or would 
he have to be carried himself. The mayor was 
an elderly man, and looked as though he were 
breaking up. He found himself glancing curi- 
ously at the old gentleman, measuring his 
strength, the breadth of his chest, and of his 


175 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


shoulders, as though the most important fact now 
were, who was to take Veronica on his back. He 
decided that Mravucsan was too weak to do it, 
and smiled to himself when he discovered how 
glad this thought made him. 

Mravucsan’s voice broke in upon his musings. 

“ Well, my dear,” he was saying, “ don’t you 
worry yourself about it ; take a rest first, and then 
we will see what is to be done. Of course it 
would be better to have other horses, but where 
are we to get them from? No one in Babaszek 
keeps horses, we only need oxen. I myself only 
keep oxen. For a mountain is a mountain, and 
horses are of no use there, for they can, after 
all, only do what an ox can, namely, walk slowly. 
You can’t make a grand show here with horses, 
and let them gallop and prance about, and toss 
their manes. This is a serious part, yes, I repeat 
it, a serious part. The chief thing is to pull, and 
that is the work of an ox. A horse gets tired of 
it, and when it knows the circumstances it loses 
all pleasure in life, and seems to say : ‘ I’m not 
such a fool as to grow for nothing, I’ll be a foal 
all my life.’ And the horses round about here 
are not much bigger than a dog, and are alto- 
gether wretched-looking.” 

He would have gone on talking all night, and 
running the poor horses down to the ground, if 
Gyuri had not interrupted him. 

176 


The Earring 


“ But I have my dog-cart here, Miss Veronica, 
and will take you home with pleasure.” 

“ Will you really,” exclaimed Mravucsan. “ I 
knew you were a gentleman. But why on earth 
didn’t you say so before?” 

“ Because you gave me no chance to put in 
a word edgeways.” 

“ That is true,” laughed Mravucsan good- 
humoredly. “ So you will take them ?” 

“ Of course, even if I were not going to Glo- 
gova myself.” 

“ Are you really going there?” asked Veronica, 
surprised. 

“ Yes.” 

She looked at him thoughtfully for a minute, 
and then said : 

“ Don’t try to deceive us.” 

Gyuri smiled. 

“ On my word of honor, I intended going to 
Glogova. Shall we all go together?” 

Veronica nodded her head, and was just going 
to clap her hands like the child she was, when 
madame began to move on the sofa, and gave 
a deep sigh. 

“ Oh dear,” said Veronica, “ I had quite for- 
gotten madame. Perhaps after all I can’t go 
with you.” 

“ And why not ? The carriage is big enough, 
there will be plenty of room.” 


177 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


“ Yes, but may I?” 

“ Go home ? Who is to prevent it ?” 

“ Why, don’t you know ?” 

“ What?” asked Gyuri, surprised. 

“ Why, etiquette, of course,” she said shyly. 

( Gyuri smiled. Oh, what a little simpleton she 
was!) 

“ Yes, yes,” she assured them, seeing they were 
laughing at her, “ it says in the book on etiquette : 
‘ You must not accept the arm of a stranger.’ ” 

“ But a carriage is not an arm,” burst out 
Mravucsan. “ How could it be? If it were, I 
should have two carriages myself. My dear child, 
leave etiquette to look after itself. In Babaszek 
I decide what is etiquette, not the French mam- 
selles. And I say a carriage is not an arm, so 
there’s an end of it.” 

“ Of course you are right, but all the same, I 
must speak to madame about it.” 

“ Just as you like, my dear.” 

Veronica again knelt down by the sofa, and 
a whispered conversation ensued, the result of 
which was, as Gyuri understood from the few 
words he could hear, that madame quite shared 
Mravucsan’s view of the case, that a carriage is 
not an arm, and that if two people have been 
introduced to each other, they are not strangers, 
and consequently, in Madame Krisbay’s opinion, 
they ought to accept the young man’s offer. 

-i 7 8 


The Earring 


Besides, in times of danger there is no such thing 
as etiquette. Beautiful Blanche Montmorency on 
the occasion of a fire was saved by the Marquis 
Privadiere with nothing on but her nightgown, 
and yet the tower of Notre Dame is still standing! 

Gyuri felt as impatient as a card-player when 
the cards are being dealt, and a large stake has 
been placed on one of them, until at length Ve- 
ronica turned round. 

“We shall be very thankful if you will take us 
in your carriage,” she said, smiling, as she was 
sure Blanche Montmorency would have done 
under the same conditions. 

Gyuri received the announcement with delight. 

“ I will go and see after the carriage,” he said, 
taking up his hat. But Mravucsan stood in his 
way. 

“ Oh, no, you don’t,” he said. “Pro primo, even 
if Veronica can go, I am sure Madame Krisbay 
cannot start yet; it would be a sin to make her 
drive now; she must rest a bit first, after her 
fright and her bruises. If my wife puts some 
of her wonderful plaster on it to-night, she’ll be 
perfectly well in the morning. Pro secundo, you 
can’t go because I won’t allow you to. Pro tertio, 
because it is getting dark. Please look out of the 
window.” 

He was right; the sun had disappeared behind 
the dark blue lines of the Zolyom Hills, and the 


179 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


fir-trees in front of the Town Hall cast their long 
shadows down the road, right up to the Mravuc- 
san garden, where a lean cat was performing its 
evening ablutions among the oleanders. All the 
same Gyuri began to plead (it was part of his 
business). 

“ It will be a quiet, warm night,” he said. 
“ Why should we not start ? After all it can 
make no difference to madame whether she 
groans in bed or in the carriage.” 

“ But it will be dark,” objected Mravucsan, 
“ and there are some very bad bits of road be- 
tween here and Glogova, and two or three preci- 
pices. In spite of my being mayor, I cannot order 
moonlight for you.” 

“ We don’t need it; we can light the lamps.” 

Veronica seemed undecided, and glanced from 
one to the other of the gentlemen, till at length 
Mravucsan put in the finishing touch. 

“ There will be a storm to-night, for there is 
the dead body of a man hanging on a tree in the 
wood you have to pass through.” 

Veronica shuddered. 

“ I would not go through that wood by night 
for anything,” she exclaimed. 

That settled the question. Gyuri bowed, and 
received a bright smile in return, and Mravucsan 
rushed into the next room, and told Konopka to 
take his place (oh, his delight at getting rid of 

180 


The Earring 


his responsibility!), as he had visitors, and had 
no time to think of other things; and then he 
whispered in the ears of some of the Senators 
(those who had on the best coats) that he would 
be pleased to see them to supper. Then off he 
trotted home, to announce the arrival of visitors, 
and give orders for their reception. On the stair- 
case he caught sight of Fiala, and sent him to tell 
Wibra’s coachman, who was waiting with the 
dog-cart outside Mrs. Muncz’s shop, to go and 
put up in his courtyard. 

After a few minutes, Mrs. Mravucsan appeared 
at the Town Hall to take the ladies home with 
her. She was a short, stout, amiable woman, 
whose broad, smiling face spoke of good temper 
and kindheartedness. She was dressed like all 
women of the middle class in that part, in a dark 
red skirt and black silk apron, and on her head 
she wore a black silk frilled cap. 

She entered the room noisily, as such simple 
village folks do. 

“ Well, I never !” she exclaimed. “ Mravucsan 
says you are going to be our guests. Is it true? 
What an honor for us ! But I knew it, I felt it, 
for last night I dreamed a white lily was growing 
out of my basin, and this is the fulfilment of the 
dream. Well, my dear, get all your things to- 
gether, and I’ll carry them across, for I’m as 
strong as a bear. But I forgot to tell you the 

:l8l 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


most important thing, which I really ought to 
have said at the beginning : I am Mrs. Mravucsan. 
Oh, my dear young lady, I should never have 
thought you were so pretty ! Holy Virgin ! Now 
I understand her sending down an umbrella to 
keep the rain off your pretty face! So the poor 
lady is ill, has hurt her shoulder? Well, I’ve got 
a capital plaster we’ll put on it; come along. 
Don’t give way, my dear, it has to be borne. 
Why, I had a similar accident once, Mravucsan 
was driving too. We fell into a ditch, and two 
of my ribs were broken, and I’ve had trouble 
with my liver ever since. Such things will happen 
now and then. Does it hurt you very much?” 

“ The lady does not speak Slovak,” said Ve- 
ronica, “ nor Hungarian.” 

“ Good gracious !” exclaimed Mrs. Mravucsan, 
clasping her hands. “ So old, and can’t even 
speak Hungarian! How is that?” 

And Veronica was obliged to explain that 
madame had come direct from Munich to be her 
companion, and had never yet been in Hungary ; 
she was the widow of a French officer, she added, 
for Mrs. Mravucsan insisted on having full par- 
ticulars. They had received a letter from her the 
day before yesterday, saying she was coming, 
and Veronica had wanted to meet her at the 
station. 

“ So that is how it is. And she can’t even 


The Earring 


speak Slovak nor Hungarian! Poor unhappy 
woman ! And what am I to do with her ? — whom 
am I to put next her at table ? — how am I to offer 
her anything? Well, it will be a nice muddle! 
Luckily the schoolmaster can speak German, and 
perhaps the young gentleman can too?” 

“ Don’t you worry about that, Mrs. Mravucsan, 
I’ll amuse her at supper, and look after her 
wants,” answered Gyuri. 

With great difficulty they got ready* to go, 
Madame Krisbay moaning and groaning as they 
tried to dress her, after having sent Gyuri into 
the passage. Mrs. Mravucsan collected all the 
shawls, rugs, and cloaks, and hung them over 
her arm. 

“ We will send the servant for the lady’s box,” 
she said. 

Then she made madame lean on her, and they 
managed to get her downstairs. Madame was 
complaining, half in French, half in German, and 
the mayor’s wife chatted continually, sometimes 
to the young couple walking in front, sometimes 
to madame, who, with her untidy hair, looked 
something like a poor sick cockatoo. 

“ This way, this way, my dear young lady. 
That is our house over there. Only a few more 
steps, my dear madame. Oh, the dog won’t bite 
you. Go away, Garam! We shall be there 
directly. You will see what a good bed I will 

183 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


give you to sleep in to-night; such pillows, the 
softest you can imagine!” 

It made no difference to her that Madame 
Krisbay did not understand a word of what she 
was saying. Many women talk for the sake of 
talking. Why should they not? They are prob- 
ably afraid a spider might spin its web before 
their mouth. 

“ It hurts you, does it not ? But it will hurt 
still more to-morrow ; that is always the way with 
a bruise of that kind. Why, you will feel it in 
two weeks’ time.” 

Then, casting a sly glance at the pair walking 
in front: 

“ They make a handsome couple, don’t they?” 

It was not far to the Mravucsans’ house, and 
it would have been nearer still if there had not 
been an immense pool of water just in front of the 
Town Hall, to avoid which they had to go a good 
bit out of their way. But this pool was a neces- 
sity, for all the geese and ducks in the village 
swam on it, the pigs came and wallowed in the 
mud round it, and last, but not least, the firemen 
took their water from here in case of fire. Oh, I 
forgot to say that all the frogs from the whole 
neighborhood had taken up their abode in it, and 
gave splendid concerts to the villagers. 

So, as I said before, they needed the pool and 
gladly put up with its presence, and it was con- 

184 


The Earring 


sidered common property. Once a civil engineer 
had been sent there by the county authorities, and 
he had called their attention to the fact that the 
pool ought to be filled up; but they just laughed 
at him, and left it as it was. 

So now they had to go right round the pool to 
the “ hotel,” which strangers always named the 
“ Frozen Sheep,” in reference to the story I men- 
tioned before. The gypsies were still playing 
inside, and outside several couples were turning 
in time to music, and some peasants were stand- 
ing about drinking their glass of “ palinka” (a 
kind of brandy), while a wagoner from Zolyom 
sat alone at a table drinking as hard as he could. 
He was already rather drunk, and was keeping 
up a lively conversation all by himself, gazing 
now and then with loving eyes at the lean horse 
harnessed to his cart, and which, with drooping 
head, was awaiting his master’s pleasure to 
move on. 

“ My neighbor says,” philosophized the wagon- 
er aloud, “ that my horse is not a horse. And 
why is it not a horse, pray ? It was a horse in the 
time of Kossuth ! What ? It can’t draw a load ? 
Of course not, if the load is too heavy. It is thin, 
is it? Of course it is thin, for I don’t give it 
any oats. Why don’t I give it any ? Why, because 
I have none, of course. What’s that you say? 
The other day it couldn’t drag my cart? No, 

i85 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


because the wheel was stuck in the mud. My 
neighbor is a great donkey, isn’t he ?” 

Upon which, up he got, and stumbled over to 
the dancers, requesting them to give their opinion 
as to whether his neighbor was a donkey or not. 
They got out of his way, so, like a mad dog, 
which sees and hears nothing, the wagoner rushed 
upon Madame Krisbay. 

“ Is mine a horse, or is it not ?” 

Madame was frightened, and the smell of 
brandy, which emanated from the good man, 
made her feel faint. 

“ Mon Dieu! ” she murmured, “ what a country 
I have come to !” 

But Mrs. Mravucsan, gentle as she was gener- 
ally, could also be energetic if necessary. 

“ I don’t know if yours is a horse or not,” she 
said, “ but I can tell you you’re a drunken 
beast !” 

And with that she gave him a push which sent 
him rolling over on his back. He lay there 
murmuring : 

“ My neighbor says my horse is blind in one 
eye. Nonsense ! He can see the road just as well 
with one eye as with two.” 

Then up he got, and began to follow them, and 
Madame Krisbay, leaving go of Mrs. Mravucsan’s 
arm, and in her fright forgetting her wounded 
shoulder, took to her heels and ran. The dancers 

1 86 


The Earring 


seeing her went into fits of laughter at the pair 
of thin legs she showed. 

“ How on earth can she run so fast with such 
thin legs?” they asked each other. 

Still more surprised were Veronica and Gyuri 
(who had seen nothing of the incident with the 
wagoner) ; they could not imagine why the sick 
woman was running at the top of her speed. 

“ Madame! madame! What is the matter?” 

She gave no answer, only rushed to the 
Mravucsans’ house, where she again had a fright 
at the sight of three enormous watch-dogs, who 
received her with furious barks. She would have 
fallen in a faint on the floor, but at that moment 
Mravucsan appeared on the scene to receive his 
guests, so she fell into his arms instead. The 
good mayor just held her quietly, with astonished 
looks, for he had never yet seen a fainting woman, 
though he had heard they ought to be sprinkled 
with water, but how was he to go for water? 
Then he remembered he had heard that pinching 
was a good remedy, that it would, in fact, wake 
a dead woman; but in order to pinch a person, 
she must have some flesh, and Madame Krisbay 
had nothing but bones. So he waited with 
Christian patience till the others arrived on the 
scene, and then gave her up to their tender 
mercies. 

“ Phew !” he breathed, “ what a relief !” 

187 









Intellectual Society in Babaszek 


PART IV 






CHAPTER I. 


THE SUPPER AT THE MRAVUCSANS*. 

I am not fond of drawing things out to too 
great a length, so will only give a short descrip- 
tion of the Mravucsans’ supper, which was really 
excellent, and if any one were discontented, it 
could only have been Madame Krisbay, who 
burned her mouth severely when eating of the 
first dish, which was lamb with paprika. 

“ Oh,” she exclaimed, “ something is pricking 
my throat!” 

But the pudding, she found still less to her taste 
(a plain paste rolled out very thin, and cut into 
squares, boiled and served up with curds and 
whey, and small squares of fried bacon). 

“Mon Dieu!” she said, “ it looks like small 
bits of wet linen !” 

Poor Mrs. Mravucsan was inconsolable at her 
guest’s want of appetite. 

“ It is such a disgrace for me,” she said. 

Then it occurred to her to offer her some of her 
preserved fruit, and to this madame seemed to 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


take a fancy, for she finished up the dish, and in 
proportion as her hunger was appeased, her liking 
for her surroundings increased. 

She had the Lutheran clergyman, Samuel 
Rafanidesz, on her right, and the schoolmaster, 
Teofil Klempa, on her left, and to them was 
deputed the task of entertaining the unfortunate 
foreigner. Their invitations had been put in 
this form: 

“ You must come, for there is to be a German 
lady at supper, whom you are to entertain.” 

And they did all they could to prove to the 
rest of the company how much at ease they were 
in good German society. 

Madame Krisbay seemed very contented with 
her neighbors, especially when she discovered 
that the Rev. Samuel Rafanidesz was a bachelor. 
What! did clergymen marry there? (Perhaps, 
after all, she had not come to such a bad country !) 

The schoolmaster was a much handsomer man, 
but he was older, and was, besides, married. He 
had an intelligent face, and a long, flowing black 
beard ; he had, too, a certain amount of wit, which 
he dealt out in small portions. Madame Krisbay 
smiled at his sallies. Poor woman! She would 
have liked to have laughed at them, but did not 
dare to, for her throat was still burning from 
the effects of that horrid paprika. Now and then 
her face (which was otherwise like yellow wax)’ 


192 


The Supper at the Mravucsans’ 


got quite red from the efforts she made to keep 
from coughing, which, besides being the fore- 
runner of old age, she also considered very de- 
meaning. 

“ Don't mind us, my dear," called out the 
mayor’s wife, “ cough away as much as you like. 
A cough and poverty cannot be hidden." 

Madame began to feel more and more at home, 
for, as it turned out, the clergyman had been at 
school at Munich, and could tell a lot of anec- 
dotes of his life there, in the Munich dialect, 
much to madame’s delight. The Rev. Samuel 
Rafanidesz did not belong to the stiff, unpleasant 
order of clergymen, and there was a Slovak sen- 
tence composed by Teofil Klempa, often repeated 
by the good people of Babaszek, which bore 
reference to him, and which, if read backward, 
gave his name : “ Szedi na fare, Rafanidesz" 
(“Stay in your parish, Rafanidesz " . But he 
never took this advice, and had already been sent 
away from one living (somewhere in Nograd) 
because of an entanglement with some lady in the 
parish. Mrs. Mravucsan knew the whole story, 
and even the lady, a certain Mrs. Baho. She 
must have been a silly woman, for it was she her- 
self who let the cat out of the bag, to her own hus- 
band too ; and she was not a beauty either, as we 
can see from Mrs. Mravucsan’s words : 

“ Rafanidesz was a fool. You should never 


193 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


ask a kiss from an ugly woman, nor a loan from a 
poor man, for they immediately go and boast of 
it.” 

Thus Mrs. Mravucsan. It is true she added : 

“ But if any one were to call me as a witness, 
I should deny the whole thing.” 

So you see, I can’t stand good for the truth of 
it either. But that is neither here nor there. 

Madame Krisbay certainly enjoyed the com- 
pany of her two neighbors, and those gentlemen 
soon raised the whole country in her estimation. 
But it was lucky she understood no Slovak, and 
could not hear the conversation carried on by the 
intelligence of Babaszek. Of course they were 
clever people too, in their way, and Veronica often 
smiled at the jokes made, for they were all new to 
her, though the natives of Babaszek knew them 
all by heart; for instance, the rich butcher, Pal 
Kukucska, always got up when the third course 
was on the table, and drank to his own health, 
saying : 

“ Long life to my wife’s husband !” 

It would really be waste of time to try and de- 
scribe the supper, for nothing of any real impor- 
tance happened. They ate, they drank, and then 
they went home. Perhaps they spoke of impor- 
tant matters ? Not they ! Only a thousand trifles 
were discussed, which it would be a pity to put in 
print; and yet the incidents of that supper were 


194 


The Supper at the Mravucsans 


the talk of Babaszek for weeks after. For in- 
stance, Mr. Mravucsan upset a glass of wine with 
the sleeve of his coat, and while they were wip- 
ing it up, and strewing salt on the stain, Senator 
Konopka, turning to the lady of the house, ex- 
claimed : 

“ That means a christening, madam !” 

Of course Mrs. Mravucsan blushed, but Ve- 
ronica asked in a most innocent tone : 

“ How can you know that?” (She was either 
a goose, that young girl, or she was a good 
actress.) 

Now who was to answer her with a face as in- 
nocent as the Blessed Virgin’s must have been 
when she was a girl in short frocks? They all 
looked at each other, but luckily the forester’s 
wife, Mrs. Wladimir Szliminszky, came to the 
rescue with this explanation : 

“ You see, my dear, the stork which brings the 
children generally lets one know beforehand, and 
the knocking over a glass is one of the signs it 
gives.” 

Veronica thought for a bit, and then shook her 
head unbelievingly. 

“ But I saw the gentleman knock the glass over 
himself,” she objected. 

To this Mrs. Szliminszky had no answer ready, 
so, according to her usual custom, she turned to 
her husband and began worrying him. 

195 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


“ Wladin, cut the fat off that meat.” 

Wladin frowned. 

“ But, my dear, that is just the best bit.” 

“ Never mind, Wladin, I can’t allow it. Your 
health is the first consideration.” 

And Wladin obediently cut off the fat bits. 

“ Why is your coat unbuttoned l Don’t you 
feel how cold it is ? Button it up at once, Wladin.” 

The forester did as he was told, and with the 
pleasant feeling of having done his duty, turned 
his attention to his plate again. 

“ Not another bit, Wladin, you’ve had enough. 
We don’t want you to dream of bulls to-night.” 

Wladin obediently put down his knife and fork, 
and prepared to drink a glass of water. 

“ Give it me first,” cried his wife excitedly. “ I 
want to see that it is not too cold.” 

Wladin handed over his glass of water. 

“ You may drink a little of it, but not too much. 
Stop, stop, that will do !” 

Poor Wladin! He was a martyr to conjugal 
love! For sixteen years he had suffered under 
this constant thoughtfulness, and though he was 
a strong man when he married, and had never 
been ill since, yet every minute of his life he ex- 
pected some catastrophe; for, through constant 
warnings, the unfortunate Pole had worked him- 
self up to the belief that a current of air or a drop 

196 


The Supper at the Mravucsans’ 


of water could be disastrous to him. He felt that 
Nature had bad intentions toward him. 

“ Take care, Wladin, or the dog will bite your 
foot!” 

One of the watch-dogs was under the table 
gnawing at a bone he had possessed himself of, 
and a little farther off the cat was looking on, 
longingly, as much as to say : “ Give me some of 
that superfluous food.” 

Now began the so-called “ amabilis confusio.” 
Every one spoke at once, and every one about a 
different subject. The Senators had returned to 
the important question of the corpse hanging in 
the wood; Mrs. Mravucsan complained that no 
one was eating anything, and looked as wretched 
as she could. 

Each one drank to the other’s health, and dur- 
ing the quiet moment that followed, a voice was 
heard : 

“ Oh, Wladin, Wladin!” 

It was Mrs. Szliminszky’s voice; she evidently 
objected to her husband drinking, and her neigh- 
bor, Mr. Mokry, the lawyer’s clerk, objected to 
her constant distractions, in spite of the interest- 
ing theme they were discussing. 

“ That strong cigar will harm you, Wladin ; 
you had better put it down. Well, and why did 
you go to Besztercebanya, Mr. Mokry ?” 

19 7 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


“ I had a lot to do there, but, above all, I 
bought the suit I have on. ,, 

He looked admiringly at his dark blue suit for 
about the hundredth time that evening. 

“ It is a very nice suit. What did you pay for 
it?” 

“ I had it made to measure at Klener’s, and 
went to try it on myself.” 

“ What was the price ?” 

“ It is real Gacs cloth, and quite impervious to 
rain; you should see it by daylight!” 

“ Yes, of course, but what did it cost?” asked 
the Polish lady, her thoughts still occupied with 
her husband. 

“ I saw the piece of cloth myself ; this was the 
first length cut off it. It has a peculiar look in the 
sunlight.” 

“ Yes, yes ; but I asked the price of it.” 

But it was difficult to bring Mokry to think of 
other things when he was once launched on the 
subject of his new suit. 

“ Klener has a tailor working for him, a cer- 
tain Kupek, who used to work at one of the court 
tailors’ in Vienna, and he said to me : ‘ Don’t 

grudge the money, Mr. Mokry, for this is such a 
durable stuff that your own skin will wear out 
first.’ Please feel it.” 

“ It’s as soft as silk. Wladin, my dear, I think 
you had better change places with me. You are 

198 


The Supper at the Mravucsans’ 


in a draught there each time the door is opened. 
What are you making such a face for? You 
surely don’t mean to argue with me? Over you 
come now !” 

The beloved martyr changed places with his 
wife, and now Mrs. Szliminszky was on the 
opposite side of the table, next to Wibra; but he 
was entirely taken up with Veronica, who was 
chattering to her heart’s content. The clever 
young man, of whom it was said he would once 
be the first lawyer in Besztercebanya, was lis- 
tening to the girl with as' much attention as 
though a bishop were speaking, and would not for 
a moment have taken his eyes off her. 

They spoke quietly, as though they were dis- 
cussing very important questions, though they 
were in reality speaking of the most innocent 
things. What did Veronica do at home? She 
read a good deal, and took long walks. What did 
she read, and where did she walk ? And Veronica 
gave the titles of some books. Gyuri had read 
them all too, and they began exchanging notes 
regarding some of them, such as “ Elemer the 
Eagle,” “ Ivan Berend,” “ Aranka Beldi.” Gyuri 
considered Pal Beldi very stupid for not accept- 
ing the title of prince when it was offered him. 
Veronica thought it was better he had not done so, 
for if he had, the novel would never have been 
written. 


*99 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


Then Gyuri began to question her about 
Glogova. Was it very dull? Veronica looked at 
him, surprised. How could Glogova be dull ? It 
was as though some ignorant person had asked 
if Paris were dull. 

“ Is there a wood there ?” 

“ A beautiful one 

“ Do you ever go there ?” 

“ Of course. ,, 

“ Are you not afraid ?” 

“ Afraid of what?” 

“ Well, you know, woods sometimes have in- 
habitants one might be afraid of.” 

“ Oh, but the inhabitants of our woods are 
more afraid of me than I of them.” 

“ Can any one be afraid of you ?” 

“ Oh, yes they are, because I catch them.” 

“ The robbers ?” 

“ Don’t be so silly, or I shall be cross !” 

“ I should like to see what you look like when 
you are cross.” 

“ Well, I shall be if you talk such rubbish again. 
I catch butterflies in the wood.” 

“ Are there pretty butterflies there ? I had a 
collection when I was a student; I believe I have 
it still.” 

At this a desire for rivalry seized hold of Ve- 
ronica. 

“ You should see my collection,” she said. “ I 
200 


The Supper at the Mravucsans’ 


have all kinds. Tigers, Admirals, Apollos; only, 
it is such a pity, my Apollo has lost one of its 
wings.” 

“ Have you a Hebe ?” 

“ Oh, yes, it is nearly as big as the palm of my 
hand.” 

“ And how big is that ? Let me see it.” 

Veronica spread out her hand on the table; it 
was not so very big after all, but fine and pink as 
a roseleaf. Gyuri took a match and began to 
measure it, and in doing so, accidentally touched 
her hand with his finger, upon which she hastily 
drew it away and blushed furiously. 

“ It is very hot,” she said, putting up her hand 
to her hot face, as though she had drawn it away 
for that purpose. 

“ Yes, the room has got quite hot,” broke in 
Mrs. Szliminszky. “ Unbutton your coat, Wla- 
din!” 

Wladin heaved a sigh of relief, and undid his 
coat. 

Veronica returned to the subject of the butter- 
flies. 

“ I think butterfly catching must be the same to 
me as hunting is to a man.” 

“ I am very fond of butterflies,” answered Gy- 
uri, “ because they only love once.” 

“ Oh, I have another reason for liking them.” 

“ Perhaps because of their mustaches ?” 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


Veronica turned her head away impatiently. 

“ Mr. Wibra, you are beginning to be unpleas- 
ant.” 

“ Thank you for the compliment.” 

“ What compliment?” 

“ You say I am beginning to be unpleasant, 
which is as much as to say I was pleasant till 
now.” 

“ I see it is dangerous to talk with you, for you 
put words into my mouth I never intended say- 
ing. I shall not speak again.” 

“ I’ll never do it again, never, I assure you. 
Only do talk,” pleaded Gyuri. 

“ Do the butterflies really interest you ?” 

“ Upon my honor, they interest one more at this 
moment than lions and tigers.” 

“ I think butterflies are so pretty — like a beau- 
tifully dressed woman. And what tasteful com- 
binations of color ! I always look at their wings 
as though they were so many patterns of ma- 
terials. For instance, look at a Hebe, with its 
black and red under-wings, do not they match 
beautifully with the yellow and blue-top wings! 
And then the Tiger, with its brown and yellow- 
spotted dress ! Believe me, the renowned Worth 
might with advantage take a walk in the woods, 
and learn the art of combining shades from the 
butterflies.” 

“ Gently, Wladin !” called out Mrs. Szlimins- 


202 


The Supper at the Mravucsans’ 


zky at this moment. “ How many lungs have 
you? A three-kreutzer stamp is sufficient for 
local letters/’ 

Wladin and Senator Fajka were wondering 
how matters would stand if they were both very 
deaf, and Wladin was talking so loudly that his 
loving spouse felt bound to put in a word of re- 
monstrance, and request him to have some respect 
for his lungs. 

“ They are quite close to each other, and yet 
they shout as though they were trying to per- 
suade some one not to put a fifteen-kreutzer stamp 
on a local letter. Oh dear! When will people 
be more sensible ?” 

At that moment, Senator Konopka rose and 
drank to the health of the host, the “ regenerator” 
of Babaszek. He spoke in exactly the same thin, 
piping voice as Mr. Mravucsan ; when the guests 
closed their eyes, they really believed the master 
of the house himself was speaking, and sounding 
his own praises; of course this caused great 
amusement. Upon that up sprang the mayor, 
and answered the toast in Konopka’s voice, with 
just the same grimaces and movements he always 
made, and the merriment rose in proportion. 
Kings do this too in another form, for at meetings 
and banquets they pay each other the compliment 
of dressing up in each other’s uniforms ; and yet 
no one thinks of laughing at them. 


203 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


Toast succeeded toast. 

“ You have let the dogs loose now,” whispered 
Fajka to Konopka. 

Mokry drank to the health of the lady of the 
house, and then Mravucsan stood up a second 
time to return thanks in his wife's name. He re- 
marked that, to their great disappointment, one 
of those invited had been unable to come, namely, 
Mrs. Miincz, who had at the last moment had an 
attack of gout in her foot, which was no wonder, 
considering the amount of standing and running 
about she did when there was a fair in their town. 
Then they all emptied their glasses to the health 
of the old Jewess. 

After the shouts of acclamation had died away, 
Wladin Szliminszky called out : 

“ Now it is my turn !” 

“ Wladin, don’t make a speech !” cried his wife. 
“ You know it is bad for your lungs to speak so 
loud.” 

But she could do nothing now to prevent him ; 
a henpecked husband is capable of everything ; he 
will button or unbutton his coat, eat or drink to 
order, but refrain from making the speech his 
brain has conceived he will not; at least, it has 
never yet been heard of in the annals of Hun- 
garian history. 

“ I take up my glass, gentlemen, to drink to the 
fairest flower of the company, beloved by God, 

204 


The Supper at the Mravucsans’ 


Who on one occasion sent down His servant 
from Heaven, saying : ‘ Go down at once, Peter, 
with an umbrella; don’t let the child get wet.’ 
Long life to Miss Veronica Belyi !” 

Veronica was as red as a rose, especially when 
the guests all got up one after the other, and went 
and kissed her hand; some of them even knelt 
to do it, and pious Mrs. Mravucsan bent down 
and kissed the hem of her dress. 

Gyuri thought at first on hearing Wladin’s pe- 
culiar speech that the good man had gone mad, 
and now seeing every one following his example, 
was more surprised than ever, and a strange feel- 
ing crept over him. 

“ What miracle is it your husband is referring 
to?” he asked, turning to Mrs. Szliminszky. 

That good lady looked at him surprised. 

“What! Don’t you know the story? Why, 
it is impossible. It is even printed in Slovak 
verse.” 

“ What is printed ?” 

“ Why, the story of the umbrella . . . Wladin, 
you are very hot, your face is the color of a boiled 
lobster. Shall I give you my fan ?” 

“What about the umbrella?” queried Gyuri 
impatiently. 

“ It is really strange you have never heard any- 
thing about it. Well, the story runs, that when 
your fair neighbor was a little child, they once 

205 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


left her out on the veranda of the priest’s house. 
Her brother, the priest of Glogova, was in the 
church praying. A storm came on, it poured in 
torrents, and the child would have been wet 
through and have got inflammation of the lungs, 
or something of the kind, if a miracle had not 
taken place. An old man appeared on the scene, 
no one knows from where; he seemed to have 
fallen from heaven, and he spread an umbrella 
over the child’s head.” 

“ My umbrella !” burst unconsciously from the 
lawyer. 

“ What did you say ?” 

“ Nothing, nothing.” 

His blood coursed more quickly through his 
veins, his heart beat faster, he raised his head 
quickly, with the result that he also knocked his 
glass over. 

“ A christening, another christening !” called 
out every one. 

“ My best wishes,” said Mr. Rafanidesz, turn- 
ing to Mrs. Szliminszky, who blushed becomingly 
and told him not to talk nonsense. 

But the young lawyer would not let her con- 
tinue the conversation; he drew his chair nearer 
to hers, and said : 

“ Please go on.” 

“ Well, the gra,y-haired man disappeared, no 
206 


The Supper at the Mravucsans’ 


one knew how nor where, and those who saw him 
for a moment swore it was St. Peter.” 

“ It was Muncz !” 

“ Did you speak ?” 

Gyuri bit his lip, and saw that he had spoken 
his thoughts aloud. 

“ Nothing, nothing; please go on.” 

“ Well, St. Peter disappeared, and left the um- 
brella behind him.” 

“ And does it still exist ?” 

“ I should think it does indeed. They keep it 
as a relic in the church of Glogova.” 

“ Thank God!” 

He drew a deep breath, as though a great 
weight had fallen from him. 

“ Found !” he murmured. He thought he 
would have fallen from his chair in his joy. 

“And to whom does it belong? To the 
Church ?” asked Gyuri. 

“ It may be yours once,” said Mrs. Szliminszky. 
“It will be Veronica’s when she marries; the 
priest of Glogova told me so himself. 4 It will 
belong to my sister/ he said, ‘ unless she 
makes a present of it to the Church when she 
marries.’ ” 

“ Oh, no,” said the lawyer, shaking his head. 
“At least, I mean . . . What am I saying? 
What were we speaking about? It is fearfully 


207 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


warm, I’m stifling. Please, Mr. Mravucsan, 
could we have the window open ?” 

“ Of course,” and the mayor ran to open it. 

“ Button up your coat, Wladin !” 

A fresh spring air entered by the window, and 
a slight breeze put out both the candles. 

“ Kisses allowed,” called out Klempa. 

A branch of lilac was just outside the window, 
and spread its delicious perfume through the 
room, decidedly more pleasant than the fumes 
of tobacco smoke which had filled it a minute 
before. 

Madame Krisbay, startled by the sudden dark- 
ness, gave vent to a little scream, and Klempa 
seized the opportunity to exclaim : 

“ I assure you it was not I !” 

There was a general confusion in the darkness, 
but Mrs. Szliminszky, wanting to prove she was 
above being troubled by such trifles, quietly con- 
tinued her conversation with Gyuri. 

“ It is a pretty little legend, Mr. Wibra. I am 
not easily imposed upon, and, besides, we are 
Lutherans ; but I must say it is a very pretty leg- 
end. But the umbrella is really wonderful. 
Sick people are cured if they stand under it; a 
dead man rose to life again when it touched him. 
It is of no use your shaking your head, for it is 
true. I know the man himself, he is still alive. 
Altogether the things that umbrella has (done are 

208 


The Supper at the Mravucsans’ 


wonderful, especially the fact that it has brought 
luck and riches to the priest of Glogova.” 

A dark suspicion took possession of Gyuri, and 
when the candles were relighted, it was to be seen 
he was as pale as death. 

“ Is the priest rich ?” he asked. 

“ Very rich,” answered Mrs. Szliminszky. 

He drew nearer to her, and suddenly seized 
hold of her hand, pressing it convulsively. The 
good lady could not make out why. (If he had 
done so a minute sooner, she could have under- 
stood it, but the candles were alight now !) 

“ He found something in the umbrella, did he 
not ?” he asked, panting. 

Mrs. Szliminszky shrugged her white shoul- 
ders, half visible through the lace insertion of her 
dress. 

“ Why, what could he find in an umbrella ? It 
is not a box, nor an iron case. But for the last 
fourteen years people have come from great dis- 
tances to be married under the umbrella, and they 
pay generously for it. And then when a rich per- 
son is dying anywhere beyond the Bjela Voda, 
from the Szitnya right as far as Krivan, they send 
for the priest of Glogova to hear their confession, 
and after their death, to bury them under the um- 
brella.” 

Veronica, to whom the mayors wife had been 
showing the embroidered table-cloth, calling her 


209 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


attention to the fineness of the linen, now caught 
a few words of the conversation. 

“ Are you speaking of our umbrella ?" she asked 
amiably, leaning toward them. 

Gyuri and Mrs. Szliminszky started. 

“ Yes, my dear/’ answered the latter, slightly 
confused. 

Gyuri smiled mischievously. 

“ I see said Veronica, “ you don't believe the 
story." 

“ No, I do not." 

“ Really?" asked the girl reproachfully; “ and 
why?" 

“ Because I never believe nonsense, and be- 
cause ..." 

He had nearly said too much, but he kept back 
the words that rose to his lips when he saw how 
wounded the girl appeared at his incredulity. 
She smiled, turned her head away, and gazed si- 
lently at her plate. Gyuri was silent too, though 
he felt inclined to cry out : 

“ I am rich at last, for in the handle of that um- 
brella there are unknown treasures." 

It is remarkable that if good luck befalls a man, 
his first wish ( for he still has wishes, even if they 
are all fulfilled) is to communicate it to others; 
he would like trumpets sounded, heralds to be 
sent round to announce it to the whole world. 


210 


The Supper at the Mravucsans* 


But then comes doubt, the everlasting “ perhaps.” 
And so it was with Gyuri. 

“What is the umbrella like, Miss Veronica?” 
he asked. 

Veronica closed her lips firmly, as though she 
considered it unnecessary to answer him, then 
thought better of it, and said : 

“ It is not much to look at ; it is of faded red 
stuff, looks a thousand years old, and is patched 
all over.” 

“ With a border of small green flowers?” 

“ Have you seen it?” 

“ No, I only asked.” 

“ Yes, there is a border of green flowers on it.” 

“ Could I see it?” 

“ Certainly. Do you wish to ?” 

“ That is what I am going to Glogova for.” 

“ Why, if you don’t believe in it?” 

“ Just for that very reason. If I believed in 
it I should not go.” 

“You are a heathen.” 

She drew her chair away from him, at which 
he at once became serious. 

“ Have I hurt you?” he asked contritely. 

“ No, but you frighten me,” and her lovely oval 
face expressed disappointment. 

“ I will believe anything you like, only don’t 
be afraid of me.” 


211 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


Veronica smiled slightly. 

“ It would be a shame not to believe it,” struck 
in Mrs. Szliminszky, “ for it is a fact — there is 
plenty to prove it. If you don’t believe that, you 
don’t believe anything. Either the miracles in 
the Bible are true, and if so, this is true too, 
or ...” 

But she could not finish her sentence, for at that 
moment Madame Krisbay rose from the table, 
saying she was tired, and would like to retire to 
her room, and Mrs. Mravucsan led her and 
Veronica to two small rooms opening on to the 
courtyard. In the doorway Gyuri bowed to 
Veronica, who returned it with a slight nod. 

“ Shall we start early in the morning?” he 
asked. 

She bowed with mock humility. 

“ As you like, Mr. Thomas,” she said. 

Gyuri understood the reference, and answered 
in the same strain : 

“ It depends upon how long the saints sleep.” 

Veronica turned her head, and shook her fist 
playfully at him. 

“ I will pay you out !” she said. 

Gyuri could hardly take his eyes off her, she 
looked so pretty as she spoke. Let the saints 
look like that if they could ! 

Soon after the Szliminszky pair started for 
home, accompanied by a man carrying a lantern. 


2 12 


The Supper at the Mravucsans’ 


Mrs. Szliminszky had made Wladin put on a light 
spring coat, hung a long cloak over his shoulders, 
tied a big woollen scarf round his neck, and having 
ordered him only to breathe through his nose, 
once they were out, she turned to Gyuri again. 

“ Yes, it is a beautiful legend, it made a great 
impression on me” 

“ Poor legends !” returned Gyuri. “ If we 
were to pick some of them to pieces, and take the 
romance out of them, their saintly odor, their 
mystery, what strange and simple truths would 
be left !” 

“ Well, they must not be picked to pieces, that 
is all. Wladin, turn up the collar of your coat.” 

The lawyer thought for a minute. 

“ Perhaps you are right,” he said. 

After a short time Gyuri also asked to be shown 
to his room. 

“ The magnet has gone !” muttered the lawyer’s 
clerk. 

Hardly had the door closed when Kukucska, 
the butcher, exclaimed : 

“ Now we are free !” 

He took off his coat, rolled up his sleeves, thus 
showing the head of an ox tatooed on his left 
arm, then winked knowingly at Mravucsan. The 
mayor seemed to understand the look, for he went 
to a cupboard and pulled out one of the drawers, 
from which he took a pack of cards. The knave 


213 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


of spades was missing, but that did not make any 
difference to the intelligent members of Babaszek 
society, for they had once before played “Prefer- 
ence” with those cards, and the last player had 
simply received one card less when they were dealt 
out, though he was supposed to have the knave 
of spades, and it was called the “ spirit card.” If 
they were playing spades, the last player in imagi- 
nation threw the knave on it, saying : “ I play the 
spirit card !” So now, in spite of this small diffi- 
culty, they decided to play, and the game lasted till 
daylight. The Senators, the butcher, and the 
clergyman played, the lawyer’s clerk dealt, and 
Klempa looked on, having no money to lose, 
and went from one player to the other, looking 
over their shoulders, and giving them advice 
what to play. But one after the other sent him 
away, declaring he brought them bad luck, which 
rather depressed him. So the poor schoolmaster 
wandered from one to the other, till at last 
he took a seat between the clergyman and the 
butcher, dropped his weary head on the table, 
and went to sleep, his long beard doubled up, 
and serving as a pillow. But he was to have 
a sad awakening, for that mischievous Pal Ku- 
kucska, seeing the beard on the table, conceived 
the idea of sealing it there; and fetching a can- 
dle and sealing-wax, they dropped some on the 
beard in three places, and Mravucsan pressed 


214 


The Supper at the Mravucsans’ 


his own signet ring on it. Then they went on 
playing, until he should awake. 

Other incidents, and not very pleasant ones 
either, were taking place in the house. Madame 
Krisbay, to whom the mayor’s wife had given her 
own bedroom, would not go to bed with the enor- 
mous eider-down quilt over her, for she was 
afraid of being suffocated during the night. She 
asked for a “ paplan ” (a kind of wadded bed 
cover), but Mrs. Mravucsan did not possess such 
a thing, so she brought in her husband’s enor- 
mous fur-lined cloak and threw it over madame, 
which so frightened the poor nervous woman that 
she was attacked by migraine, and the mayor’s 
wife had to spend the night by her bed, putting 
horse-radish on her temples. 

An unpleasant thing happened to Veronica too. 
As soon as she was alone in the Mravucsans’ best 
bedroom, she locked the door, hung a cloak on 
the door-handle so that no one could look through 
the key-hole, drew the curtains across the tiny 
windows which opened on to the courtyard, and 
then began to undress. She had taken off the 
bodice of her dress and unfastened her skirt, when 
all at once she became aware of two bright eyes 
watching her intently from under the bed. It 
was a kitten, and it was gazing at her as intently 
and admiringly as though it had been a prince 
changed by some old witch into the form of a cat. 

215 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


Veronica, alarmed, caught up her skirt and 
bodice, and put them on again. 

“ Go along, you tiresome kitten,” she said ; 
“ don’t look at me when I’m undressing.” 

She was such an innocent child, she was 
ashamed to undress before the kitten. She 
dressed again, and tried to drive it out of the 
room, but it hid itself under the bed, then jumped 
on a cupboard, and it was quite impossible to get 
rid of it. Mrs. Mravucsan, hearing the noise 
from the next room, called out : 

“ What is the matter, my dear ?” 

“ I can’t drive the cat out.” 

“ Never mind, she won’t hurt you.” 

“ But she always watches me,” answered Ve- 
ronica. 

She put her candle out, and began to undress 
in the dark, but that tiresome cat walked into the 
middle of the room again, and her eyes shone 
more than ever. 

“ Wait a bit, you curious little thing,” said 
Veronica. “ I’ll get the best of you yet.” 

She made a barricade of chairs, then got inside 
it, as though she were in a fortress, and began to 
undo her boots. Do you think that barricade 
made any impression on the kitten ? Not a bit of 
it. There she was again, on the top of the chairs, 
from there one jump took her on to the washing- 
stand, and another on to Veronica’s bed. There 


216 


The Supper at the Mravucsans' 


she was seized upon and a shawl bound round 
her head. 

“ Now, kitty, stare at me if you can !” 

And after that she managed to undress in 
peace. 


CHAPTER II. 


NIGHT BRINGS COUNSEL. 

While the two ladies were occupied with 
these trifles, and Klempa with his beard sealed to 
the table slept the sleep of the just, Gyuri had also 
retired to his bed, but found it impossible to sleep. 
It was not from indigestion, for Mrs. Mravuc- 
san’s excellent supper had not disagreed with 
him; it was his brain which was hard at work, 
going over all the incidents that had taken place 
that day. He seemed to have lived through years 
in the last few hours. What an age it seemed 
since he had looked for the umbrella in Mrs. 
Muncz’s shop! And it was found quite unex- 
pectedly. God had given it into the charge of an 
angel. 

h From the umbrella his thoughts flew to the 
“ angel/’ 

She was a nice little thing, he decided; not a 
bit unpleasant like other girls of that age he knew, 
who were thoughtless, useless creatures. Ve- 

218 


Night Brings Counsel 


ronica was an exception. And she seemed to have 
taken to him too. 

He passed again in revision all her words, her 
movements, and as he went on, he found among 
the smiles, the softened voice, the unwatched mo- 
ments, certain signs of coldness here and there, as 
though she were putting a restraint upon herself. 

But he was so happy now, that he did not need 
the friendship of a silly girl. He was a rich man 
now, a nabob beginning from to-day. He would 
live like a prince henceforward, spend the winter 
in Budapest, or on the Riviera, in Monaco, and 
the summer at Ostend; in fact, he would be a 
grand gentleman, and not even look at poor 
priests’ sisters. (How tiresome it was, his 
thoughts would always return to Veronica.) 

Sleep would not come, how could it be ex- 
pected? One scheme after the other passed be- 
fore his mind’s eye, like the butterflies in the Glo- 
gova woods. And he chased them all in turn. 
Oh ! if it were only daylight, and he could move 
on. His watch was ticking on the table beside 
his bed ; he looked at it, the hands pointed to mid- 
night. Impossible! It must be later than that; 
his watch must be slow ! Somewhere in the dis- 
tance a cock crew, as much as to say : “ Your 

watch is quite right, Mr. Wibra.” He heard 
faint sounds of music proceeding from the 
“ Frozen Sheep ” in the distance, and some one on 


219 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


his way home was singing a Slovak shepherd’s 
song. 

Gyuri lighted a cigar, and sat down to smoke it 
and think things over. How strangely the um- 
brella had been found — at least he had not found 
it yet, it was not yet in his possession, and when 
he came to look at the facts, he found he was not 
much nearer to it than he had been. Until now 
he had supposed it had been thrown away as a 
useless rag, and he had had little hope of finding 
it. And now, what had happened? Things 
were quite different to what they had imagined 
them; for as it turned out, the umbrella was a 
treasure, a relic in a church. What was to be 
done about it ? What was he to say to the priest 
to-morrow? “I have come for my umbrella”? 
The priest would only laugh at him, for, either 
he was bigoted and superstitious, in which case 
he would believe St. Peter had brought the um- 
brella to his sister, or he was a Pharisee, and in 
that case he would not be such a fool as to betray 
himself. 

The wind was rising, and the badly fitting win- 
dows and door of the little room that had been 
allotted to him were rattling, and the furniture 
cracked now and then. He could even hear the 
wind whistling through the Liskovina Wood, not 
far from the house. Gyuri blew out the light and 
Jay down again under the big eider-down quilt, 


220 


Night Brings Counsel 

and imagined he saw the corpse Mr. Mravucsan 
had spoken of, hanging from a tree, waving from 
side to side in the wind, and nodding its head at 
him, saying : “ Oh, yes, Mr. Wibra, you’ll be 
well laughed at in the parish of Glogova.” 

The lawyer tossed about on the snow-white 
pillows, from which an odor of spring emanated 
(they had been out in the garden to air the day 
before). 

“ Never mind,” thought he, “ the umbrella is 
mine after all. I can prove it in a court of jus- 
tice if necessary. I have witnesses. There are 
Mr. Sztolarik, Mrs. Miincz and her sons, the 
whole town of Besztercebanya.” 

Then he laughed bitterly. 

“And yet, what am I thinking of? I can’t 
prove it, for, after all, the umbrella does not belong 
to me, but to the Miincz family, for the old man 
bought it. So only that which is in the handle 
belongs to me. But can I go to the priest and 
say: ‘ Your reverence, in the handle of the um- 
brella is a check for 200,000 or 300,000 florins, 
please give it to me, for it belongs of right to 

f 

me r 

Then Gyuri began to wonder what the priest 
would answer. He either believed the legend of 
the umbrella, and would then say : “ Go along, 
do ! St. Peter is not such a fool as to bring you 
a check on a bank from Heaven !” Or if he did 


221 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


look in the handle and find the receipt, he would 
say : “ Well, if he did bring it, he evidently 
meant it for me.” And he would take it out and 
keep it. Why should he give it to Gyuri ? How 
was he to prove it belonged to him ? 

“ Supposing,’’ thought our hero, “ I were to tell 
him the whole story, about my mother, about my 
father, and all the circumstances attending his 
death. Let us imagine he would believe it from 
Alpha to Omega ; of what use would it be ? Does 
it prove that the treasure is mine? Certainly 
not. And even if it did, would he give it to me? 
A priest is only a man after all. Could I have a 
lawsuit, if he would not give it me ? What non- 
sense! Of course not. He might take the re- 
ceipt out of the handle, and what proofs can I 
bring then that it was ever in it ?” 

The perspiration stood on his forehead ; he bit 
the bed-clothes in his helpless rage. To be so 
near to his inheritance, and yet not be able to 
seize hold of it!” 

“ Black night, give counsel !” was Gyuri’s 
prayer. And it is best, after all, to turn to the 
night for help. Gyuri was right to ask its advice, 
for it is a good friend to thought. Among the 
Golden Rules should be written : “ Think over all 
your actions by night, even if you have decided by 
day what course to take !” For a man has night 
thoughts and day thoughts, though I do not know 


222 


Night Brings Counsel 


which are the better. I rather think neither kind 
is perfect. For daylight, like a weaver, works its 
colors into one’s thoughts, and night covers them 
with its black wings. Both of them paint, in- 
crease and decrease things — in one word, falsify 
them. Night shows the beloved one more beau- 
tiful than he is, it strengthens one’s enemies, in- 
creases one’s troubles, diminishes one’s joy. It 
is not kind of it; but night is sovereign, and is 
answerable to no one for its actions. Take things 
as they come, but do not put aside serious thought 
when you are seeking .the truth. Though, of 
course, you do not really seek the truth ; even if it 
comes to meet you, you get out of its way. I 
ought to have said, do not despise the night when 
you are trying to find the way out of a thing. 
Night will show you what to do, without your 
even noticing it. If it can do it in no other way, 
it brings you gentle sleep, and gives you advice 
in dreams. 

After a time the wind dropped, the music at 
the “ Frozen Sheep ” ceased, and Gyuri heard 
nothing but a rhythmic murmur, and all at once 
he seemed to be in the woods of Glogova, chasing 
butterflies with Veronica. 

As they ran on among the bushes, an old man 
suddenly appeared before them, with a golden 
crook, a glory round his head, and his hat hanging 
by a bit of string from his neck. 

223 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


“ Are you Mr. Wibra ?” he inquired. 

“Yes; and you?” 

“ I am St. Peter.” 

“ What do you want ?” 

“ I wish to sign a receipt for your happiness.” 

“ For my happiness?” 

“ I see you cannot get your umbrella, and my ' 
friend Gregorics has asked me to help you. So 
I am quite willing to sign a paper declaring that 
I did not give the umbrella to the young lady.” 

“ It is very good of you, but I have neither 
paper nor ink here. Let us go back to the vil- 
lage.” 

“ I have no time for that ; you know I have to 
be at the gates of Heaven, and I can’t stay away 
for long.” 

“ Well, what am I to do, how am I to get my 
umbrella ?” 

St. Peter turned his back, and began to walk 
back the way he had come, but stood still beside a 
large oak-tree, and made a sign to Gyuri to ap- 
proach. Gyuri obeyed. 

“ I’ll tell you what, my friend, don’t think too 
long about it, but marry Veronica, and then you 
will have the umbrella too.” 

“ Come,” said Gyuri, catching hold of the 
golden crook. “ Come and ask her brother to 
give his permission.” 

He pulled hard at the crook, but at that moment 
224 


Night Brings Counsel 


a strong hand seemed to pull him back, and he 
awoke. 

Some one was knocking at the door. 

“ Come in,” he said sleepily. 

It was the Mravucsans’ farm-servant. 

“ I’ve come for your boots,” he announced. 

Gyuri rubbed his eyes. It was day at last, the 
sun was smiling at him through the window. His 
thoughts were occupied with his dream, every in- 
cident of which was fresh in his mind. He 
thought he heard St. Peter’s voice again saying: 
“ Marry Veronica, my friend, and then you will 
have the umbrella too.” 

“ What a strange dream,” thought Gyuri ; 
“ and how very much logic it contains ! Why, I 
might have thought of that solution myself !” 

By the time Gyuri was dressed, it was getting 
late, and every member of the Mravucsan house- 
hold was on foot. One was carrying a pail to the 
stables, another a sieve, and near the gate which 
last night’s wind had partly lifted off its hinges, 
Gyuri’s coachman was examining the damage 
done. Seeing his master advancing toward him, 
he took off his hat with its ostrich feathers (part 
of the livery of a Hungarian coachman is a kind 
of round hat, with two ends of black ribbon hang- 
ing from it at the back, and some small ostrich 
tips in it). 


225 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


“ Shall I harness the horses, sir ?” 

“ I don’t know yet. Here, my good girl, are 
the ladies up ?” 

“ They are breakfasting in the garden,” an- 
swered the maid he had accosted. “ Please walk 
this way.” 

“ Well, then, you may harness, Janos.” 

Gyuri found the ladies seated round a stone 
table under a large walnut-tree. They had fin- 
ished breakfast, only madame was still nibbling 
a bit of toast. He was received with ironical 
smiles, and Veronica called out: 

“ Here comes the early riser !” 

“ That title belongs to me,” said Mravucsan, 
“ for I have not been to bed at all. We played 
cards till daybreak. Klempa is still asleep with 
his beard sealed to the table.” 

“ A nice sort of thing for grown-up folks to 
do !” remarked Mrs. Mravucsan. 

Gyuri shook hands with them all, and Veronica 
got up and made a deep courtesy. 

“ Good-morning, early riser,” she said. “ Why 
are you staring at me so?” 

“ I don’t know how it is,” stammered Gyuri, 
gazing at the girl’s beautiful face, “ but you seem 
to me to have grown.” 

“ In one night?” 

“ You were quite a little girl yesterday.” 

“ You appear to be dazed !” 

226 


Night Brings Counsel 


“ I certainly am when I look at you.” 

“ You seem to be sleepy still. Is this the time 
of day to get up ?” 

The playful, gentle tone was delightful to 
Gyuri, and he began to be quite talkative. 

“ I fell asleep for a short time, and if the ser- 
vant had not woke me, I should be asleep still. 
Oh, if he had only waited five minutes longer !” 

“ Had you such a pleasant dream ?” asked Mrs. 
Mravucsan. “ Will you take some coffee ?” 

“ If you please.” 

“ Won't you tell us your dream ?” 

“ I was going to marry — in fact, had got as far 
as the proposal.” 

“ Did she refuse you?” asked Veronica, raising 
her head, the beauty of which was enhanced by the 
rich coronet of hair, in which she had stuck a 
lovely pink. 

“ I don’t know what would have happened, for 
at the critical moment the servant woke me.” 

“ What a pity, we shall never know how it 
would have turned out !” 

“ You shall know some time.” 

“ How?” 

“ I will tell you.” 

“How can you do that? Dreams cannot be 
continued from one night to another like novels 
in a periodical.” 

Gyuri drank his coffee, lit a cigar, and from out 
227 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


the cloud of smoke he replied in a mysterious 
voice, his eyes turned heavenward: 

“ There are such dreams, as you will see. And 
how did you sleep ?” 

Thereupon Mrs. Mravucsan began to tell the 
story of Veronica’s adventure with the kitten. 
Every one laughed, poor Veronica was covered 
with blushes, and Mrs. Mravucsan, finding the op- 
portunity a good one, launched upon a little lec- 
ture. 

“ My dear child, exaggeration is never good, not 
even in modesty. You will have to get used to 
such things. What will you do when you are 
married? You will not be able to shut your hus- 
band out of your room.” 

“ Oh, dear!” exclaimed Veronica. “ How can 
you say such dreadful things !” 

And she jumped up, blushing furiously, and 
ran away to the gooseberry-bushes, where her 
dress got caught, and in trying to move on, the 
gathers got torn. Thereupon there was a rush 
for needle and thread, and the confusion was 
heightened when the carriage drove up, the two 
handsome black horses pawing the ground im- 
patiently. 

(The lawyer’s business must be a good one; 
he must have lied a lot to be able to buy such 
horses!) 

Every member of the household had some task 
22 8 


Night Brings Counsel 


allotted to her. Anka must wrap up the ham in 
a cloth, Zsuzsa must run and fetch the fresh bread 
that had been baked for the occasion. Some one 
else must bring knives and forks. Would they 
like a little fruit packed in the basket? The for- 
eign lady would be glad of something of the kind. 
And should she put a small pot of jam in too?” 

“ But, my dear Mrs. Mravucsan, we shall be at 
home by dinner-time !” 

“ And supposing something happens to prevent 
it? You never can know.” 

And off she went to her storeroom, while the 
mayor tried to persuade them to stay at least an 
hour longer; but it was of no use, the travellers 
had made up their minds to start; not even the 
possibility of seeing Klempa wake up would in- 
duce them to change their plans. 

They got into the carriage, the two ladies on the 
back seat, and Gyuri on the box with the coach- 
man, but his face turned toward the ladies. 
Whether he would hold out in that uncomfortable 
position till Glogova remained to be seen. 

“ To Glogova,” said Gyuri to the coachman, 
and Janos cracked his whip and the horses started, 
but hardly were they out of the yard, when the 
mayor’s wife came tripping after them, calling 
out to them at the top of her voice to stop. They 
did so, wondering what had happened. But noth- 
ing serious was the matter, only Mrs. Mravucsan 

229 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


had unearthed a few apples in her storeroom, with 
which she filled their pockets, impressing upon 
them that the beautiful rosy-cheeked one was for 
Veronica. Then they started again, with a great 
amount of waving of handkerchiefs and hats, un- 
til the house, with its smoking chimneys and its 
large walnut-tree, was out of sight. 

As they passed Mrs. Miincz’s shop she was 
standing at the door in her white cap, nodding to 
them with her gray head, which seemed cut into 
two parts by the broad-rimmed spectacles. At 
the smithy they were hammering away at the 
priest’s broken chaise, and farther on various ob- 
jects which had been left unsold at yesterday’s 
fair were being packed in boxes, and then put in 
carts to be taken home again. They passed in 
turn all the tiny houses, with their brightly- 
painted doors, on which the names of the owners 
were printed in circles. At the last house, oppo- 
site the future Jewish burial-ground, two pistol- 
shots were fired. 

The travellers turned their heads that way, and 
saw Mr. Mokry in his new suit, made by the noted 
tailor of Besztercebanya, with his hat in one hand, 
and in the other the pistol he had fired as a fare- 
well greeting. On the other side of the road 
was the dangerous windmill, its enormous sails 
throwing shadows over the flowering clover- 
fields. Luckily it was not moving now, and 

230 


Night Brings Counsel 


looked like an enormous fly pinned on the blue 
sky. 

There was not a breath of wind, and the ears of 
wheat stood straight and stiff, like an army of sol- 
diers. Only the sound of the horses’ hoofs was 
to be heard, and the woods of Liskovina stretched 
before them like a never-ending green wall. 


* 










The Third Devil 




PART V 




* * * 


; 


th 




l 












































■ 






















CHAPTER I. 

MARIA CZOBOR’s ROSE, THE PRECIPICE, AND 
THE OLD PEAR-TREE. 

Madame Krisbay was very much interested in 
the neighborhood they were driving through, and 
asked many questions. They passed a small 
chapel in the wood, and Veronica explained that 
a rich innkeeper had once been killed there by rob- 
bers, and the bereaved widow had built this chapel 
on the spot. 

“ Perhaps out of gratitude ?” suggested Gyuri. 

“ Don’t be so horrid,” exclaimed Veronica. 

The Liskovina Wood is quite like a park, with 
the exception that there is not much variety in the 
way of trees, the birch, the favorite tree of the 
Slovaks, being predominant. But of flowers there 
were any amount. The ferns grew to a great 
height, the Anthoxantum had flowered, and in its 
withered state filled the whole wood with its per- 
fume. Among plants, as among people, there 
are some which are only pleasant and agreeable 

2 35 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


to others after their death. What a difference 
there is in the various kinds of plants ! There is 
the gladiolus, the most important part of which is 
the bulb it hides under the earth ; whoever eats it 
dreams of the future. 

Much simpler is the ox-eye daisy, for it will tell 
you without any ceremonies if the person you are 
thinking of loves you very much, a little, or not at 
all ; you have only to pull off its snow-white petals 
one by one, and the last one tells you the truth. 

The wild pink provides food for the bee, the 
lily serves as a drinking-cup for the birds, the 
large dandelion is the see-saw of the butterflies. 
For the Liskovina woods are generous, and pro- 
vide beds for all kinds of insects, strawberries for 
children, nosegays for young girls, herbs for old 
women, and the poisonous aconite, which the 
peasants in that part called the “Wolf-killer.” 

Whether it ever caused the death of a wolf is 
doubtful, for wolves have their fair share of sense, 
and probably, knowing something of botany, they 
tell their cubs : “ Don’t touch the Aconitum Ly- 
cotinum, children ; it is better to eat meat.” 

It was delightful driving in the shady woods, 
though Madame Krisbay was alarmed each time a 
squirrel ran up a tree, and was in constant fear of 
the robbers who had killed the rich innkeeper. 

“ Why, that was eighty years ago, madame !” 

“Well, and their sons?” 

23 6 


Maria Czobor’s Rose 


She was restless till they had got clear of the 
wood and had come to a large barren plain, with 
here and there a small patch of oats, stunted in 
their growth. 

But after that they came to another wood, the 
far-famed “ Zelena Hruska,” in the shape of a 
pear. Supposing robbers were to turn up there ! 

And Gyuri was just wishing for their appear- 
ance while madame was thinking with horror of 
them. As he sat face to face with the girl, he de- 
cided to marry her — because of the umbrella. 
The girl was certainly pretty, but even had she 
not been so, the umbrella was worth the sacrifice. 
St. Peter had told him what to do, and he would 
follow his advice. Superstition, at which he had 
laughed the day before, had taken possession of 
him, and made a place for itself among his more 
rational thoughts. He felt some invisible power 
pushing him on to take this step. What power 
was it? Probably St. Peter, who had advised 
him in his dream to take it. But how was he to 
set to work ? That was what was troubling him 
the whole time. How convenient it would be if 
there were some romance nowadays, as in olden 
times or in novels; for instance, if robbers were 
now to appear on the scene, and he could shoot 
them down one after the other with his revolver, 
and so free Veronica, who would then turn to him 
and say: 


237 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


“ I am yours till death !” 

But as matters were at present, he did not dare 
to take any steps in the right direction ; the words 
he had so well prepared seemed to stick in his 
throat. Doubts arose in his mind ; supposing she 
had not taken a fancy to him! Supposing she 
were already in love ! She must have seen other 
men besides himself, and if so, they must have 
fallen in love with her. Something ought to hap- 
pen to help matters on a little. 

But no robbers came, there probably were none ; 
it was a poor neighborhood, nothing grew there, 
not even a robber. 

After they had passed the wood, they saw an 
old castle among the trees, on the top of a hill. 
It was the Castle of Slatina, had formerly be- 
longed to the Czobors, and was now the property 
of the Princes of Coburg. 

They had to stop at an inn to feed the horses, 
and Veronica proposed their going to look at the 
castle, of which an old man had charge ; he would 
show them over it. The innkeeper assured them 
some of the rooms were just as the Czobors had 
left them ; in the court were a few old cannon, and 
in the house a collection of curious old armor, and 
some very interesting family portraits, among 
them that of a little girl, Katalin Czobor, who had 
disappeared from her home at the age of seven. 
Veronica was very interested in the child. 

238 


Maria Czobor’s Rose 


“ And what happened to her ?” she asked. 

“ The poor child has never turned up to this 
day !” sighed the innkeeper. 

“ And when was it she disappeared ?” 

“ About three hundred years ago,” he answered 
with a smile, and then accompanied his guests up 
the mountain path that led to the castle. 

They were silent on their return, only Madame 
Krisbay remarking: 

“ What a mouldy smell there was in there!” 

Veronica had caught sight of a beautiful rose 
on a large bush near the half-ruined walls of the 
bastion. 

“ What an exquisite flower !” she exclaimed. 

The old caretaker had a legend about that too. 
From this spot beautiful Maria Czobor had 
sprung from the walls, and thrown herself down 
the precipice, for her father wished her to marry 
an officer in the Emperor’s army, and she was in 
love with a shepherd. The latter had planted a 
rose-bush on this spot, and every year it bore one 
single blossom. Gyuri dropped behind the 
others, and begged the old man to give him the 
rose. 

“ My dear sir, what are you thinking of ? 
Why, the poor girl’s spirit would haunt me if I 
were to do such a thing !” 

Gyuri took out his purse and pressed two silver 
florins into the man’s hand, upon which, without 


239 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


further ado, he took out his knife and cut the 
rose. 

“ Won’t the young lady’s spirit haunt you 
now?” asked Gyuri, smiling. 

“ No, because with part of the money I will 
have a Mass said for the repose of her soul.” 

Gyuri ran after the ladies with the rose in his 
hand, and offered it to Veronica. 

“ Here is Maria Czobor’s rose,” he said. 
“ Will you give me your pink in exchange ?” 

But she put her hands behind her back, and said 
coldly : 

“ How could you have the heart to pick it ?” 

“ I did it for your sake. Will you not ex- 
change ?” 

“No; I would not for the world wear that 
flower; I should think I had stolen it from that 
poor girl.” 

“ Will you really not accept it?” 

“ No!” 

Gyuri threw the rose away, and it rolled down 
the hillside in the dust and dirt. 

Veronica gazed pityingly after the flower as 
long as it was visible, then turned angrily to 
Gyuri. 

“ Is that the way to treat a flower ? Had it 
hurt you in any way ?” 

“ Yes,” answered the lawyer shortly. 

“ Did it prick you?” 


240 


Maria Czobor’s Rose 


“ It informed me of a very unpleasant fact.” 

“ What was it?” 

“ It whispered the continuation of my last 
night’s dream to me.” 

“ What a little chatterbox !” 

She turned her big eyes upon Gyuri and spoke 
in a jesting tone. 

“ I should have had a refusal !” 

Veronica threw back her head, and turned her 
eyes toward heaven. 

“ Poor Mr. Wibra !” she exclaimed. “ What 
misfortune to be refused in a dream !” 

“ Pray go on, make as much fun of it as you 
like,” he said bitterly. 

“ And are you sure you would have been re- 
fused ?” 

“ Yes, now I am sure of it,” he answered sadly. 
“ You might guess now of whom I dreamed.” 

“Of me?” she asked surprised, and the smile 
died away on her lips. “ Of me ?” she stammered 
again, then was silent, descending the hill quietly 
in madame’s wake with bent head. She had 
lifted the skirt of her dress a little to prevent its 
dragging in the dust, and her little feet were 
partly visible as she tripped along with regular 
steps, treading on the grass and flowers, which, 
however, were not crushed by her footsteps, but 
rose again as she passed on. 

A tiny lizard crossed their path, its beautiful 


241 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


colors shining in the sunlight. But what a sad 
fate befell it! Just at that moment a giant (well 
known in Besztercebanya) came that way, mur- 
muring : “ Why should it live ?” and bringing 
down a heavy heel severed the poor lizard’s head 
from its body. 

Veronica just then turned round, and saw the 
cruel action ; she felt inclined to cry over the poor 
lizard, but did not dare to say anything, for she 
herself began to be afraid of this Goliath, so she 
only murmured under her breath: “Wretch!” 

When they were farther down the hill she saw 
before her the rose he had thrown away ; there it 
lay, dirty and dusty, among the stones by the 
roadside, and, obeying a sudden impulse, she bent 
and picked it up, blowing the dust off its rosy 
petals, and then she placed it in the bosom of her 
dress, where it seemed as though it were in its 
right place at last. She did not say a word, nor 
did she look at that dreadful Goliath, but turned 
away her head, so that he could not see her face. 
But Goliath was quite satisfied at seeing the rose 
where he had wished it to be, and out of gratitude 
would have liked to restore the lizard to life, but 
that was of course impossible. 

At the foot of the hill the carriage was waiting, 
and the travellers took their places again, this time 
with an uncomfortable feeling. Silently they sat 
opposite each other, one looking to the right, the 

242 


Maria Czobor’s Rose 


other to the left, and if their eyes happened to 
meet they hastily turned them away. When they 
spoke, their remarks were addressed to Madame 
Krisbay, who began to notice that something had 
happened. 

But what? Only a few childish words to 
which their minds had given a more serious mean- 
ing than they were meant to have, and had in- 
creased in size as once the professors narrow cell 
in Hatvan, which the devil enlarged to such an 
extent that the whole town had place in it. Well, 
in those few words, everything was contained. 

But now something else happened. I don’t 
know how it was, but I think a pin dropped, and 
at the same moment Veronica bent down as 
though to look for it. In doing so the pink fell 
out of her hair into Gyuri’s lap, and he picked it 
up in order to return it to her. But she made 
him a sign to keep it. 

“ If it would not stay in my hair, and fell into 
your lap, you may as well keep it.” 

Would it not have stayed in her hair? Was it 
quite an accident ? thought Gyuri, as he smelt the 
flower. What a pleasant odor it had! Was it 
from her hair ? 

Now they were driving beside the Brana, the 
far-famed Brana, which quite shuts this part of 
the country off from the rest of the world, like 
an immense gate. That is why it is called the 


243 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


Brana, or gate. It is no common mountain, but 
an aristocrat among its kind, and in fine weather 
it wears a hat, for its summit is hidden in clouds. 
Several small streams make their way down its 
side, flowing together at the foot, and making 
one broad stream. 

“ That is the Bjela Veda,” explained Veronica 
to Madame Krisbay, “ we are not far from home 
now.” 

They still had to drive through one wood, and 
then the little white cottages of Glogova would 
be before them. But this was the worst bit of 
the road, crooked and curved, full of ruts and 
rocks, and so narrow that there was hardly room 
for the carriage to pass. 

Janos turned round and said with a shake of 
his head : 

“ The king himself would grow crooked here !” 

“ Take care, Janos, that you don’t upset us!” 

Janos got down from his seat, and fastened one 
of the wheels firmly, for there was no brake to the 
carriage; and now the horses had to move at a 
funeral pace, and sometimes the road was so nar- 
row between two hills that they could see nothing 
but the blue sky above them. 

“ This place is only fit for birds,” muttered 
Janos. 

“ Don’t you like this part of the country?” 

“ It is like a pock-marked face,” he replied. 


244 


Maria Czobor’s Rose 


“It is not the sort of place one would come to 
to choose a wife.” 

Gyuri started. Had the man discovered his in- 
tentions ? 

“ Why do you think so ?” 

“ My last master, the baron (Janos had been 
at some baron’s before in Saros county), used to 
say to his sons, and he was a clever man too, 
4 Never look for a wife in a place where there are 
neither gnats, good air, nor mineral springs !’ ” 

At this both Veronica and Gyuri were obliged 
to laugh. 

“ That’s a real Saros way of looking at things. 
But, you see, you have vexed this young lady.” 

“ According to your theory I shall have to be 
an old maid !” said Veronica. 

But Janos vigorously denied the possibility of 
such a thing. 

“ Why, dear me, that is not likely ; why . . . 
you ...” 

He wanted to say something complimentary, 
but could not find suitable words, and as chance 
would have it, his next words were nearer to 
swearing than to a compliment, for the shaft of 
the carriage broke. The ladies were alarmed, and 
Gyuri jumped down from his seat to see the ex- 
tent of the damage done. It was bad enough, for 
it had broken off just near the base. 

“ What are we to do now?” exclaimed Janos. 


245 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


“ I said this place was only fit for birds, who 
neither walk nor drive.” 

“ Oh, that is nothing serious,” said Gyuri, who 
at that moment was not to be put out by a shaft, 
nor by a hundred shafts. 

“ Give me your axe, and you go and hold the 
horses. I’ll soon bring you something to fasten 
the shaft to, and strengthen it.” 

He took the axe out of the tool-box under the 
coachman’s seat, said a few words to reassure the 
ladies, and then jumped the ditch by the side of 
the road. 

There were some trees there, but they were as 
rare as the hairs on the head of an old man. First 
came a birch, then a hazelnut bush, then a black- 
thorn, then a bare piece of ground without any 
trees, and then again a few old trees. So it was 
rather difficult to find a suitable tree ; one was too 
big, another too small ; so Gyuri went on and on 
in search of one, and got so far that soon the car- 
riage was out of sight, and only Veronica’s red 
sunshade was to be seen in the distance, like a 
large mushroom. At length his eyes fell on a 
young birch, which grew near to a small precipice. 
It was too big for a seedling and too small for a 
tree, but well-grown and promising. All the 
same it must be sacrificed, and down came the axe. 

But hardly had two or three blows been struck, 
when a voice was heard, crying out : 

246 


Maria Czobor’s Rose 


“Reta! Reta!” (Help! Help!) 

Gyuri started and turned round. Who had 
called ? The voice seemed quite close, but no one 
was visible far and near. 

Again the call for help was repeated, and now 
it seemed to come out of the earth, and Gyuri 
immediately concluded it came from the precipice, 
and ran toward it. 

“ Here I am !” he called out. “ Where are you 
and what is the matter ?” 

“ I am down the precipice/’ was the answer ; 
“ help me, for God’s sake !” 

Gyuri looked down, and saw a figure there in 
a black coat, but he could not see much of it, for 
it would have been dangerous to have gone too 
near to the edge. 

“ How did you manage to get down there ?” 

“ I fell in yesterday evening,” answered the 
man in the black coat. 

“ What! Yesterday evening! And can’t you 
get out?” 

“ It is impossible, for there is nothing to hold 
on to, and if I catch hold of any projecting bits, 
they give way, and I fall back with them.” 

“ You are in a bad way altogether! And has 
no one passed here since then ?” 

“ No one comes this way. I was prepared for 
the worst when I heard the sound of blows in the 
neighborhood. Thank God you came ! Help 

247 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


me if you can, good man, whoever you may be, 
and I will reward you !” 

“ I will help you of course with the greatest 
pleasure, but I must think first how to manage it. 
If I let down the trunk of a small tree could you 
climb up it?” 

“ I am very weak from want of sleep and from 
hunger,” answered the man, his voice getting 
weaker from shouting. 

“ Poor fellow! Wait a moment!” 

He had suddenly remembered the apples Mrs. 
Mravucsan had put in his pockets that morning. 

“ Hallo, there ! Look out ! I am going to 
throw down a few apples to go on with while I 
think over what I am to do.” 

He took the apples out of his pockets, and rolled 
them down one after the other. 

All of a sudden he remembered that Veronica’s 
was among them. Supposing she were vexed at 
his giving it away ! 

“ Have you got them?” 

“ Yes, thank you.” 

“ Please don’t eat the red one, it is not mine.” 

“ Very well, I will not eat it.” 

“ You seem to be of the better class?” 

“ I am the parish priest of Glogova.” 

Gyuri, surprised, fell a step backward. How 
strange! The parish priest of Glogova! Could 
anything more unexpected have happened? 

248 


Maria Czobor’s Rose 


“ I will get you out, your reverence ; only wait 
a few minutes.” 

Back he ran to the carriage, which was waiting 
in the valley below. From this point the country 
round about looked like the inside of a poppy head 
cut in two. He did not go quite up to the car- 
riage, but as soon as he was within speaking dis- 
tance, shouted at the top of his voice to Janos : 

“ Take the harness off the horses, and bring it 
here to me ; but first tie the horses to a tree.” 

Janos obeyed, grumbling and shaking his head. 
He could not make out what his master needed 
the harness for. He had once heard a wonderful 
tale of olden times, in which a certain Fatepo 
Gabor (tree-felling Gabor) had harnessed two 
bears to a cart in a forest. Could Gyuri be going 
to do the same ? 

But whatever it was wanted for, he did as his 
master told him, and followed him to the preci- 
pice. Here they fastened the various straps to- 
gether, and let them down. 

“ Catch hold of them, your reverence,” called 
out Gyuri, “ and we will pull you up.” 

The priest did as Gyuri said, but even then it 
was hard work to get him up, for the ground kept 
giving way under his feet; however, at length 
they managed it. 

But what a state he was in, covered with dirt 
and dust; on his face traces of the awful night he 


249 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


had passed, sleepless and despairing, suffering the 
pangs of hunger. He hardly looked like a human 
being, and we (that is, my readers and I) who 
knew him years before would have looked in vain 
for the handsome, youthful face we remember. 
He was an elderly man now, with streaks of gray 
in his chestnut hair. Only the pleasant, amiable 
expression in his thin face was the same. He 
was surprised to see such a well-dressed young 
man before him — a rarity on the borders of the 
Glogova woods. 

“ How can I show you my gratitude ?” he ex- 
claimed, with a certain pathos which reminded 
one strongly of the pulpit. * i 

He took a few steps in the direction of the 
stream, intending to wash his hands and face, but 
he stumbled and felt a sharp pain in his back. 

“ I must have hurt myself last night, when I 
fell, I cannot walk very well.” 

“ Lean on me, your reverence,” said Gyuri. 
“ Luckily my carriage is not far off. Janos, you 
go on cutting down that tree, while we walk 
slowly on.” 

They certainly did go slowly, for the priest 
could hardly lift his left foot, and frequently 
stumbled over the roots of trees. The carriage 
was some way off, so they had plenty of time for 
conversation, and every now and then they sat 
down to rest on the trunk of a fallen tree. 


250 


Maria Czobor’s Rose 


“ Tell me, your reverence, how did you come 
to be in this part of the country late at night?’’ 

And then the priest related how he had ex- 
pected his sister home yesterday, who had gone 
to meet her governess. As time went on, and 
there were no signs of them, he began to feel 
anxious, and toward evening became so restless 
that he did as he had often done before, and 
walked to the borders of the little wood. He 
walked on and on, finding the way by keeping his 
eye on the hills on both sides, and listened for the 
sounds of wheels in the distance. All at once it 
occurred to him that they might have gone round 
by the Pribalszky mill, which was a longer but 
prettier way to Glogova, and Veronica, his sister, 
was fond of the shade there. Of course that was 
what they had done, and they must have arrived 
at home long ago while he was looking for them. 
So the best way was to turn back at once, and in 
order to get home as soon as possible, he unfor- 
tunately struck across a side path. In his haste 
he must have stepped too near to the edge of the 
precipice and had fallen in. 

“ My poor little sister !” he sighed. “ How 
anxious she must be about me !” 

Gyuri would have liked to turn the priest’s sor- 
row into joy. 

“ We will soon reassure the young lady, and 
your reverence will feel all right after a night s 

251 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


rest. In two or three days it will seem like an 
amusing incident.” 

“ But which might have ended in a horrible 
death if Divine Providence had not sent you to 
help me.” 

“ It really does seem as though Divine Provi- 
dence had something to do with it. The shaft of 
my carriage broke, or I should never have come 
near that precipice.” 

“ If I live to be a hundred I shall never forget 
your kindness to me, and your name will always 
have a place in my prayers. But how thoughtless 
of me! I have not even asked you your name 
yet.” 

“ Gyuri Wibra.” 

“ The well-known lawyer of Besztercebanya ? 
And so young ! I am glad to make the acquaint- 
ance of such an honorable man, sir, who is beloved 
in the whole of Besztercebanya; but I should be 
much more pleased if a poor man now stood be- 
fore me, to whom I could give a suitable reward. 
But how am I to prove my gratitude to you? 
There is nothing I possess which you would ac- 
cept.” 

A smile played around Gyuri’s mouth. 

“ I am not so sure of that. You know we law- 
yers are very grasping.” 

“ Is there really something, or are you jok- 
ing?” 


252 


Maria Czobor’s Rose 


The lawyer did not answer immediately, but 
walked on a few steps toward an old wild pear- 
tree, which had been struck by lightning, and not 
far from which the carriage was standing. 

“ Well, yes,” he answered then, slowly, almost 
in a trembling voice, “there is something I 
would gladly accept from you.” 

“ And what is it ?” 

“ It has just struck me that there is something 
in my carriage which you might give me.” 

“ In your carriage ?” 

“ Yes, something you do not know of yet, and 
which I should be very happy to possess.” 

The priest took him by the hand. 

“ Whatever it may be, it is yours !” 

In another minute they had reached the pear- 
tree. 

“ There is my carriage.” 

The priest looked that way, and saw, first a red 
sunshade, then a black straw hat under it, with 
some white daisies in it, and beneath it a sweet, 
girlish face. It all seemed so familiar to him, 
the sunshade, the hat, and the face. He rubbed 
his eyes as though awaking from a dream, and 
then exclaimed, catching hold of the lawyer’s 
arm : 

“ Why, that is my Veronica !” 

The lawyer smiled quietly and bowed. 

“ That is,” went on the priest in his kind, gentle 


253 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


voice, “ for the future she is your Veronica, if you 
wish” 

By this time Veronica had seen and recognized 
her brother, had jumped out of the carriage and 
run to meet him, calling out : 

“ Here we are, safe and sound. How anxious 
you must have been ! And our carriage is broken 
to bits ; and oh ! if you had only seen the horses ! 
All sorts of things have happened, and I have 
brought Madame Krisbay.” 

The priest embraced her, and was glad she 
seemed to know nothing of his accident. How 
sensible of Gyuri not to have mentioned it ! 

“ Yes, yes, my darling, you shall tell me every- 
thing in order later on.” 

But Veronica wanted to tell everything at once, 
the carriage accident in Babaszek, the supper at 
Mravucsans’ (oh, yes! she had nearly forgotten, 
Mr. Mravucsan had sent his kind regards), then 
to-day’s journey, the loss of her earring and its 
recovery . . . 

The priest, who was slowly beginning to under- 
stand things, here broke in upon her recital. 

“ And did you give the finder of it a reward ?” 

She was silent at first at the unexpected ques- 
tion, then answered hurriedly: 

“ No, of course not, how can you think of such 
a thing? What was I to give? Besides, he 
would not accept anything.” 


254 


Maria Czobor’s Rose 


“ I am surprised at that, for he has since then 
applied to me for a reward.” 

“ Impossible !” said Veronica, casting a side- 
glance at Gyuri. Strange doubts had arisen in 
her mind, and her heart began to beat. 

“ And what does he ask for?” she asked in a 
low voice. 

“ He wants a good deal. He asks for the ear- 
ring he found, and with it its owner. And I 
have promised him both !” 

Veronica bent her head; her face was suffused 
with burning blushes, her bosom heaved. 

“Well? Do you give no answer? Did I do 
right to promise, Veronica?” 

Gyuri took a step toward her, and said, in a 
low, pleading voice : 

“ Only one word, Miss Veronica!” then stood 
back under the shade of the pear-tree. 

“ Oh! I am so ashamed!” said Veronica trem- 
bling, and bursting into tears. 

A breeze came up just then across the Brana, 
and shook the pear-tree, which shed its white 
petals, probably the last the old tree would bear, 
over Veronica's dress. 


CHAPTER II. 


THREE SPARKS. 

Madame sits in the carriage, and can under- 
stand nothing of what is going on. The young 
lady entrusted to her charge springs out of the 
carriage, runs up to a strange man in a long black 
coat, throws her arms round his neck, and then 
they all begin to talk with excited gestures, stand- 
ing under the pear-tree. Then her pupil comes 
back to the carriage, mild as a lamb, arm in arm 
with the young man who had found her earring 
yesterday. All of this is so unexpected, so sur- 
prising. And while they are mending the broken 
shaft and reharnessing the horses, the man in 
the black coat, who turns out to be the girl’s 
brother, turns to her and whispers in her ear : 

“ Your pupil has just engaged herself!” 

Good gracious! When and where? Why, 
now, under the tree ! Ah, Madame Krisbay, you 
feel you ought to faint now, partly because you 
are a correct woman, and consequently horrified 
at the way the event has taken place, and partly 
because you have fallen among such strange peo- 

256 


Three Sparks 


pie ; but your bottle of Eau de Cologne is quite at 
the bottom of your travelling-bag, and so it will be 
better not to faint now. But it is very shocking 
all the same! For though a tree is suitable for 
flirting under, or for declarations of love, it is not 
the correct place to ask a parent or guardian for a 
girl’s hand. The proper place for that (espe- 
cially in novels) is a well-furnished drawing- 
room. If the girl is very shy she runs out of the 
room ; if not very shy she falls on her knees and 
asks the blessing of her parents or guardian, as 
the case may be. But how is one to kneel under 
a tree? These were the thoughts that were 
troubling Madame Krisbay, not Veronica. She, 
on the contrary, was thinking that one fine day 
she would return to this spot with her sketch- 
book, and draw the old tree as a souvenir. 

All this time the carriage was rolling along 
the dusty road. There was no room for the 
coachman, so he had to follow on foot, and Gyuri 
took the reins into his own hands, Veronica sitting 
on the box beside him. Oh dear! she thought, 
what would they think of her in the village as 
they drove through? 

The road was better now, and they could drive 
faster, so Gyuri loosened the reins, and began to 
think over the events that had taken place. Was 
it a dream or not? No, it could not be, for there 
was Veronica sitting near to him, and behind him 

257 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


Father Janos was talking to Madame Krisbay in 
the language of the Gauls. No, it was simple 
truth, though it seemed stranger than fiction. 
Who would have believed yesterday that before 
the sun set twice he would find his inheritance, 
and a wife into the bargain ? Twenty-four hours 
ago he had not known of the existence of Miss 
Veronica Belyi. Strange! And now he was 
trying to imagine what the world had been like 
without her. It seemed impossible that he had 
not felt the want of her yesterday. But the 
wheels were making such a noise, that he found it 
difficult to collect his thoughts. Wonders had 
happened. One legend, that of the umbrella, was 
done away with, but on its ruins another had built 
itself up. Heaven and earth had combined to 
help him to his inheritance. Heaven had sent a 
dream and earth a protector. 

His heart swelled as he thought of it. Oh, if 
the girl next him only knew to what a rich man 
she had promised her hand ! 

After passing the Kopanyicza Hills, which 
seem like a screen to the entrance of the valley, 
Glogova, with its little white houses, lay before 
them. 

“ We are nearly at home now,” said Veronica. 

“ Where is the Presbytery?” asked Gyuri. 

“ At the end of the village.” 

“ Tell me when to turn to the right or the left.” 

258 


Three Sparks 


“ Very well, Mr. Coachman! At present keep 
straight on.” 

A smell of lavender pervaded the street, and 
the tidy little gardens were filled with all sorts of 
flowers. In front of the houses children were 
playing, and in most of the courtyards a foal was 
running about, with a bell tied round its neck. 
Otherwise the village seemed quite deserted, for 
all who could work were out in the fields, and the 
women, having cooked the dinner at home, had 
carried it out to their husbands. Only on the 
grass-plot in front of the school-house was there 
life; there the children were at play, and their 
greetings to those in the carriage was in Hun- 
garian. 

Of the villagers only the “ aristocratic " were 
at home. At the threshold of a pretty little stone 
house stood Gongoly, much stouter than some 
years before. In front of the smithy sat Klinc- 
sok, quietly smoking, while the smith mended a 
wheel. 

“ Hallo !” he called out. “ So you've come 
back! Why, we were thinking of looking out 
for another priest !” Which showed that Father 
Janos' absence had been noticed. 

How Glogova had changed in the last few 
years ! There was a tower to the church, the like 
of which was not to be seen except in Losoncz; 
only that on the tower of Losoncz there was a 

259 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


weathercock. In the middle of the village was 
a hotel, “ The Miraculous Umbrella,” with Vir- 
ginian creeper climbing all over it, and near it a 
pretty little white house, looking as though it were 
made of sugar; behind it a garden with a lot of 
young trees in it. 

“ Whose house is that ?” asked Gyuri, turning 
round. 

“ The owner is on the box-seat beside you.” 

• “ Really? Is it yours, Veronica ?” 

She nodded her head. 

“ There is a small farm belonging to it,” said 
Father Janos modestly. 

“ Well, we won’t take it with us, but leave it 
here for your brother, shall we, Veronica?” 

Then he turned to the priest again, saying : 

“ Veronica has a fortune worthy of a countess, 
but neither you nor she knows of it.” 

Both the priest and Veronica were so surprised 
at this announcement, that they did not notice 
they were in front of the Presbytery, and Gyuri 
would have driven on if Visztula, the old watch- 
dog, had not rushed out barking with joy; and 
old Widow Adamecz called out, with the tears 
rolling down her face : 

“ Holy Mary ! you have heard the prayers of 
your servant !” 

“ Stop ! here we are. Open the gate, Mrs. 
Adamecz.” 


260 


Three Sparks 


The widow wiped away her tears, dropped her 
book, and got up to open the gate. 

“ Is dinner ready?” asked Father Janos. 

“ Dinner ? Of course not. Whom was I to 
cook for? We all thought your reverence was 
lost. I have not even lighted the fire, for my 
tears would only have put it out again.” 

“ Never mind, Mrs. Adamecz. I feel sure you 
were anxious on my account, but now go and see 
about some dinner for us, for we are dying of 
hunger.” 

Veronica had become suspicious at the widow’s 
words, and began to storm her brother with ques- 
tions ; then burst out crying and turned her back 
upon Gyuri, declaring they were hiding some- 
thing from her. So they were obliged to tell her 
the truth, and her poor little heart nearly broke 
when she thought of what her brother had gone 
through, and what danger he had been in. 

While this was going on, Mrs. Adamecz was 
bustling about in the kitchen, and giving every 
one plenty of work to do. Both the maids were 
called in to help, and the farm-servant too. 

“ Come and whip this cream, Hanka. And you, 
Borbala, go and fetch some salt. Is the goose 
plucked? Now, Matyas, don’t be so lazy, run 
and pick some parsley in the garden. Dear me ! 
How very thin the good lady is whom Miss Ve- 
ronica has brought home with her. Did you see 

261 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


her ? I shall have hard work to feed her up and 
make her decently fat. Give me a saucepan ; not 
that one, the other. And, Borbala, grate me 
some bread-crumbs. But the young man is hand- 
some. I wonder what he wants here? What 
did you say? You don’t know? Of course you 
don’t know, silly, if I don’t. But this much is 
certain (between ourselves of course), there is 
something strange in Miss Veronica’s eyes. 
Something has happened, but I can’t make out 
what.” 

Widow Adamecz thought of all sorts of things, 
both good and bad, but her cooking was excellent, 
and she gave them such a dinner, that even the 
lovers found their appetites. 

After dinner, Gyuri sent a man on horseback 
with a letter to Mr. Sztolarik in Besztercebanya. 

“ My Dear Guardian : 

“ I have great things to communicate to you, 
but at present can only write the outlines. I have 
found the umbrella, partly through Mrs. Miincz, 
partly by chance. At present I am in Glogova, at 
the priest’s house, whose sister Veronica I have 
asked in marriage. She is a very pretty girl ; be- 
sides, there is no way of getting at the money un- 
less I marry her. Please send me by the messenger 
two gold rings from Samuel Huszak’s shop, and 

262 


Three Sparks 


the certificate of my birth ; it must be among your 
papers somewhere. I should like the banns to 
be published the day after to-morrow. 

“ I remain,” etc. 

He told the messenger to hurry. 

“ I’ll hurry, but the horse won’t !” 

“ Well, use your spurs.” 

“ So I would, but there are no spurs on 
sandals !” 

The horse was a wretched one, but all the same, 
next day they heard a carriage stop at the door, 
and who should get out but Sztolarik himself. 
Great man though he was, no one was glad to see 
him except the priest. Veronica felt frightened. 
She hardly knew why, but it seemed as though a 
breath of cold air had entered with him. Why 
had he come here just now? 

The old lawyer was very pleasant to her. 

“ So this is little Veronica?” he asked. 
t “ Yes,” answered Gyuri proudly. 

The old gentleman took her small hand in his 
large one, and pinched her cheek in fatherly 
fashion. But no amount of pinching would 
bring the roses back just then. Her heart was 
heavy with fear. Why, oh, why had he come? 

Gyuri was surprised too, for Sztolarik hated to 
leave his home. 

“ Have you brought them ?” he asked. 

263 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


. “ Yes.” 

Veronica drew a breath of relief, for Gyuri had 
mentioned that he expected the engagement rings 
from Besztercebanya. 

“ Give them to me,” he said. 

“ Later on,” answered the old lawyer. “ First 
of all I must speak to you.” 

He must speak to him first? Then he must 
have something to say which could not be said 
after they had exchanged rings ! Veronica again 
felt a weight on her heart. Gyuri got up dis- 
contentedly from his place next to Veronica, 
whose fingers began to play nervously with the 
work she had in her hands. 

“ Come across to my room then.” 

Gyuri’s room was at the other end of the house, 
which was built in the shape of an L. It used to 
be the schoolroom before the new school was built. 
(Widow Adamecz had learnt her ABC there.) 
The priest who had been there before Father 
Janos had divided the room into two parts by a 
nicely painted wooden partition, and of one half 
he had made a spare bedroom, of the other a store- 
room. 

Veronica was feeling as miserable as she could, 
and her one wish at that moment was to hear the 
two gentlemen’s conversation, for everything de- 
pended on that. Some demon who had evidently 
never been to school, and had never learned that it 


Three Sparks 


was dishonorable to listen at doors or walls, whis- 
pered to her : 

“ Run quickly, Veronica, into the storeroom, 
and if you press your ear to the wall, you will be 
able to hear what they say.” 

Off went Veronica like a shot. It is incredi- 
ble what an amount of honey a demon of that de- 
scription can put into his words ; he was capable of 
persuading this well-educated girl to take her 
place among the pickled cucumbers, basins of lard, 
and sacks of potatoes, in order to listen to a con- 
versation which was not meant for her ears. 

Not a sound was to be heard in the storeroom 
but the dripping of the fat from a side of bacon 
hanging from the rafters, and which the great 
heat there was causing it to melt. Some of it even 
fell on her pretty dress, but what did she care for 
that just then? 

“ So you have found out all about the um- 
brella,” she heard Sztolarik say, “ but have you 
seen it yet?” 

“ Why should I ?” asked Gyuri. “ I cannot 
touch its contents till after the wedding.” 

“ Why not sooner ?” 

“ Because, for various reasons, I do not wish 
the story of the umbrella known.” 

“ For instance ?” 

“ First of all, because Father Janos would be 
the laughing-stock of the place.” 

26 5 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


“ Why do you trouble your head about the 
priest ?” 

“ Secondly, because it would give Veronica rea- 
son to think I am only marrying her for the sake 
of the umbrella.” 

“ But she will know it later on in any case.” 

“ I shall never tell her.” 

“ Have you any other reasons ?” 

“ Oh, yes. I dare say they would not even give 
me the check ; it is probably not made out in any 
particular name; so how am I to prove to them 
that it is mine? It really belongs to the person 
who has it in his possession. And perhaps they 
would not even give me the girl, for if her fortune 
is as large as we think it, she can find as many 
husbands as she has fingers on her hands.” 

Veronica felt giddy. It was as though they 
were driving nails into her flesh. She could not 
quite understand all they were talking about — 
of umbrellas, receipts, large fortunes. What 
fortune? But this much she had begun to un- 
derstand, that she was only the means to some 
end. 

“ Well, well,” began Sztolarik again after a 
short pause, “ the affair seems to be pretty en- 
tangled at present, but there is still worse to 
come.” 

“ What more can come ?” asked Gyuri in an un- 
certain voice. 


266 


Three Sparks 


“ Don’t do anything at present. Let us find 
out first of all whether you love the girl.” 

Poor little Veronica was trembling like a leaf 
in her hiding-place. She shut her eyes like a 
criminal before his execution, with a sort of unde- 
fined feeling that the blow would be less painful 
so. What would he answer ? 

“ I think I love her,” answered Gyuri, again in 
that uncertain voice. “ She is so pretty, don’t 
you think so ?” 

“ Of course. But the question is, would you 
in other circumstances have asked her to marry 
you ? Answer frankly !” 

0 “I should never have thought of such a thing.” 

A sob was heard in the next room, and then a 
noise as though some pieces of furniture had been 
thrown down. 

Sztolarik listened for a few moments, and then, 
pointing to the wall, asked : 

“ Do you know what is on the other side ?” 

“ I think it is the storeroom.” 

“ I thought I heard some one sob.” 

“ Perhaps one of the servants saw a mouse !” 

And that is how a tragedy looks from the next 
room when the wall is thin. If there is a thick 
wall it does not even seem so bad. One of the 
servants had seen a mouse, or a heart had been 
broken; for who was to know that despair and 
fright only have one sound to express them ? 

267 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


Veronica, with her illusions dispersed, ran out 
into the open air; she wished to hear no more, 
only to get away from that hated place, for she 
felt suffocating; away, away, as far as she could 
go. . . . And this all seemed, from the next 
room, as though Widow Adamecz or Hanka had 
seen a mouse. But, however it may have seemed 
to them, they had forgotten the whole thing in 
half a minute. 

“ You say it would never have occurred to you 
to marry her. So you had better not hurry with 
the wedding. Let us first see the umbrella and 
its contents, and then we shall see what is to be 
done next.” 

Gyuri went on quietly smoking his cigarette 
and thought : 

“ Sztolarik is getting old. Fancy making such 
a fuss about it!” 

“ I have thought it well over,” he went on 
aloud, “ and there is no other way of managing it ; 
I must marry the girl.” 

Sztolarik got up from his chair, and came and 
stood in front of the young man, fixing his eyes 
on him. 

“ But supposing you could get at your inherit- 
ance without marrying Veronica?” 

Gyuri could not help smiling. 

“ Why, I have just said,” he exclaimed im- 
patiently, “ that it cannot be done, but even if it 

268 


Three Sparks 


could, I would not do it, for I feel as though she 
also had a right to the fortune, as it has been in 
her possession so long, and Providence seems to 
have sent it direct to her.” 

“ But supposing you could get at it through Ve- 
ronica ?” 

“ That seems out of the question too.” 

“ Really? Well, now listen to me, Gyuri, for 
I have something to tell you.” 

“ I am listening.” 

But his thoughts were elsewhere, as he 
drummed on the table with his fingers. 

“ Well,” went on Sztolarik, “ when I went in to 
Huszak’s this morning to buy the two rings you 
wanted sent by the messenger (for I had no in- 
tention of coming here myself then), Huszak was 
not in the shop, so the rabbit-mouthed young man 
waited on me. You know him ?” 

Yes, Gyuri remembered him. 

“ I told him to give me two rings, and he asked 
whom they were for. So I said they were going 
a good distance. Then he asked where to, and I 
told him to Glogova. ‘ Perhaps to the priest’s 
sister ?’ he asked. ‘ Yes,’ I said. 4 She’s a beauty,’ 
he remarked. ‘ Why, do you know her ?’ asked 
I. 4 Very well,’ he answered.” 

Gyuri stopped tapping, and jumped up ex- 
citedly. 

“ Did he say anything about Veronica ?” 

269 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


“ You shall hear in a minute. While he was 
wrapping up the rings he went on talking. How 
had he got to know the priest’s sister ? ‘ I was 

in Glogova last year.’ ‘ And what the devil were 
you doing in Glogova ?’ ‘ Why, the villagers 

were having a silver handle made here for a 
wretched-looking old umbrella, which they keep 
in their church, and the stupid things were afraid 
to send the umbrella here for fear any one should 
steal it, though it was not worth twopence; so I 
was obliged to go there in order to fasten the 
handle on.’ ” 

“ Why, this is dreadful !” exclaimed Gyuri, 
turning pale. 

Sztolarik smiled. 

“ That is only why I said, my friend, that we 
had better wait a bit before deciding anything.” 

“ Let us go at once to Father Janos and ask him 
to show us the umbrella.” 

He could not wait a minute longer. He had 
been so near to his object, and now it was slipping 
from him again, like a Fata Morgana, which lures 
the wanderer on to look for it. 

It was easy to find the priest; he was feeding 
his pigeons in the garden. 

“ Father Janos,” began Gyuri, “ now Mr. 
Sztolarik is here he would like to look at your 
wonderful umbrella. Can we see it ?” 

“ Of course. Mrs. Adamecz,” he called out to 


270 


Three Sparks 


the old woman, who was plucking a fowl at the 
kitchen door, “ will you bring me out the key of 
the church, please ?” 

She did as she was asked, and the priest, going 
on in front, led his visitors through the church. 

“ This way, gentlemen, into the sacristy.” 

As they stepped in there it was before them! 
Pal Gregorics’s old umbrella smiled at them, and 
seemed like an old friend, only the handle, yes, the 
handle was unknown to them, for it was of silver. 

Gyuri gazed at it speechlessly, and felt that the 
end was near. A demon was behind him, con- 
stantly urging him on, and whispering : “ Go 
on, go on, and look for your inheritance!” A 
second demon ran on before him, beckoning and 
crying : “ Come along, it is this way !” 

But there was a third one, the liveliest of all, who 
followed in the wake of the second one, and each 
time Gyuri thought he had attained his end, this 
demon turned round, and laughed in his face, say- 
ing : “ There is nothing here !” 

Sztolarik kept his countenance, and carefully 
examined the handle of the umbrella, as though he 
were admiring the work. 

“ Had it always this same handle ?” he asked. 

“ Oh dear no, this is of real silver, and very 
finely chased. The jeweller in Besztercebanya 
made it, and he is quite an artist. Just look at the 
style, and what taste is displayed in it. My par- 

271 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


ishioners had it made last summer as a surprise 
for me while I was away at the baths. The old 
handle had been broken off, and it was almost 
impossible to make use of the umbrella. I expect 
it was Klincsok’s idea, for he started the collec- 
tion. There are still plenty of good Christian 
hearts to be found.” 

Then he turned to Gyuri. 

“ I will introduce you to Klincsok, he is a very 
worthy man.” 

Gyuri wished the worthy Klincsok in Jericho, 
and he could even have found him a companion 
for the journey, for behind him was the first 
demon, again whispering : “ Go and look for 
your inheritance!” 

“ But I suppose they kept the old handle ?” he 
asked. 

“ I do not think so,” answered the priest. “ It 
was only of common wood; I believe Mrs. 
Adamecz asked Veronica for it.” 

(It must have been the second demon speaking 
through the priest : “ The handle of the um- 
brella is in Mrs. Adamecz’s possession.”) 

Sztolarik now became curious too. 

“ Who is Mrs. Adamecz ?” he asked. 

“ My old cook, who just now brought me the 
keys.” 

Mr. Sztolarik burst out laughing, the walls of 
the empty church re-echoing with the sound. 


272 


Three Sparks 


When they were outside, and the priest had gone 
in with the keys, the old lawyer took the two rings 
out of the paper they were wrapped in and pressed 
them into Gyuri’s palm, saying quaintly : 

“ According to your logic of half an hour ago, 
you must now marry old Mrs. Adamecz, so go 
and ask for her hand at once.” 

Gyuri gave no answer to this cruel thrust, and 
went into the kitchen, where the widow was fry- 
ing pancakes. 

“ I say, Mrs. Adamecz, where have you put the 
old handle of the church umbrella ?” 

Widow Adamecz finished frying her pancake, 
put it on a wooden platter with those she had al- 
ready fried, and then turned round to see who 
was speaking to her. 

“ What have I done with the old handle, my 
dear? Well, you see, this is how it was. My 
little grandson, Matyko, got ill last year just at 
cabbage-cutting time — no, I believe it was earlier 
in the year . . 

“ I don’t care when it was, only go on.” 

Widow Adamecz quietly poured some more of 
the batter into the frying-pan. 

“ Let me see, what was I saying? Ah, yes, I 
was speaking of Matyko. Well, it was the result 
of the staring.” 

(The peasants think that if a child is much 
looked at and admired it pines away. ) 


273 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


Gyuri began impatiently to tap with his foot 
on the floor. 

“ Will you tell me where it is ?” 

“ It is there under the table.” 

“ What, the handle?” 

“ No, the child.” 

Yes, there was Matyko, sitting on a basin 
turned upside down, a fat-faced, blue-eyed Slovak 
child, playing with some dried beans, its face still 
dirty from the pancakes it had eaten. 

“ Bother you, woman ! Are you deaf ?” burst 
out the lawyer. “ I asked you about the handle 
of the umbrella, not about the child.” 

Mrs. Adamecz tossed her head. 

“ Well, that’s just what I am talking about. I 
tell you, they persisted in admiring Matyko, and 
the poor little angel was fading away. There is 
only one remedy for that ; you must take a burn- 
ing stick, and let three sparks fall from it into a 
glass of water, and of this the child must drink 
for three days. I did this, but it was of no use ; 
the child went on suffering and getting thinner 
from day to day, and my heart nearly broke at 
the sight of him ; for I have a very soft heart, as 
his reverence will tell you . . .” 

“ I don’t doubt it for a minute, but for heaven’s 
sake answer my question.” 

“ I’m coming to it in a minute, sir. Just at 
that time they were having the silver handle made 


274 


Three Sparks 


to the umbrella, and our young lady, pretty dear, 
gave me the old handle. Why, thought I, that 
will be just the thing for Matyko; if three sparks 
from that holy wood are of no use, then Matyko 
will be entered in the ranks of God’s soldiers.” 

At the thought of little Matyko as one of God’s 
soldiers her tears began to flow. It was lucky if 
none of them fell into the frying-pan. 

“ Mrs. Adamecz !” exclaimed Gyuri, alarmed, 
his voice trembling. “ You surely did not burn 
the handle?” 

The old woman looked at him surprised. 

“ How was I to get the three sparks from it if 
I did not burn it?” 

Gyuri fell back against the wall, the kitchen 
and everything in it swam before his eyes, the 
plates and basins seemed to be dancing a waltz 
together; a tongue of fire arose from the fireplace, 
bringing with it the third demon, who exclaimed : 
“ There is nothing here !” 

But all at once he felt a hand laid on his arm. 
It was Sztolarik. 

“ It was, and is no more,” he said. “ But never 
mind, Fate intended it to be so. For the future 
you will not, at all events, run after a shadow, you 
will be yourself again, and that is worth a good 
deal, after all.” 


CHAPTER III. 


LITTLE VERONICA IS TAKEN AWAY. 

But it was of no use Sztolarik preaching about 
the uselessness of worldly goods, for those 
worldly goods are very pleasant to have. 

When a favorite child dies, the members of the 
family always pronounce very wise words, which 
are supposed to comfort one another, such as: 
“ Who knows how the child would have turned 
out ? It might have come to the gallows in time ; 
perhaps it was better it had died now,” etc. But 
for all that, wisdom has never yet dried our tears. 

Sztolarik said all he could think of to console 
Gyuri, but the young lawyer was quite cast down 
at the thought that his dreams would never now 
be realized; his whole life was before him, dark 
and threatening. But the world was the same as 
of old, and everything went just the same as 
though Widow Adamecz had never burned the 
handle of the umbrella. 

The hands of the parish clock pointed to the 
Roman figure II., and the chimes rang out on the 

276 


Little Veronica is Taken Away 


air; the servants laid the table for dinner, Mrs. 
Adamecz brought in the soup, and his reverence 
led his guests into the dining-room, and placed 
them right and left of Madame Krisbay, when all 
at once they noticed that Veronica was missing. 

“ I was just going to ask,” said Madame Kris- 
bay, “ if she had been with the gentlemen?” 

“ I thought she was with you,” said the priest. 

“ I have not seen her for two hours.” 

“ Nor I.” 

“ Nor we.” 

“ Perhaps she is in the kitchen?” 

Madame Krisbay looked vexed, got up from 
her seat, and went into the kitchen to call her 
pupil, but returned at once with the remark that 
she had not been seen there either. 

“ Where can she be ?” exclaimed the priest, and 
ran out to look for her, sending the servants to 
some of her favorite seats in the garden, thinking 
she might have gone there to read, and have for- 
gotten the time. 

Mrs. Adamecz grumbled in the kitchen, for the 
dinner was spoiling. 

“ Well, serve the dinner,” said Father Janos, 
for, of course, he could not keep his guests wait- 
ing, especially as Sztolarik wanted to return home 
as soon as possible. 

So the dishes were brought in one after the 
other, but still there was no sign of Veronica; and 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


Hanka had returned with the news that no one 
had seen her. 

Gyuri sat in his place, pale and quiet. 

“ Perhaps she is in the apiary,” suggested her 
brother, “ or perhaps ” (here he hesitated a 
minute, not knowing how to continue), “ perhaps 
something unpleasant has taken place between 
you ?” 

Gyuri looked up surprised. 

' ' “ Nothing has taken place between us,” he said 
coldly. 

“ Then, Hanka, run across to the new house 
and look in the apiary. Please excuse her, gen- 
tlemen, she is such a child still, and follows her 
own whims. She is probably chasing a butter- 
fly. Take some more wine, Mr. Sztolarik.” 

He was trying to reassure himself, not his 
guests, as he sat there listening to every sound, 
paying scant attention to the conversation, and 
giving many wrong answers. 

Sztolarik asked if the bad weather this year had 
made much difference to the harvest. 

“ One or two,” answered the priest. 

“ Have you any other brothers or sisters ?” 

“ I don’t know.” 

His answers showed the perturbed state of his 
mind, and it was with difficulty he kept his seat 
at table. At length the old lawyer said : 

“ Perhaps it would be better if your reverence 

278 


Little Veronica is Taken Away 


were to go and look for Miss Veronica yourself; 
and I should be glad if you would send word to 
my coachman that I wish to start as soon as possi- 
ble, for it is a long drive to Besztercebanya.” 

The priest seized the opportunity, and begging 
Madame Krisbay to excuse him, hurried away, 
for he found Veronica’s absence very strange, and 
was beginning to get anxious. So, Madame 
Krisbay having retired, the two gentlemen were 
left alone, and a painful silence ensued. Gyuri 
was gazing with melancholy eyes at the canary, 
which was also silent now. 

“ You had better order your carriage, too/’ 
said Sztolarik, breaking the silence at last. “ We 
could leave at the same time.” 

Gyuri murmured some unintelligible answer, 
and shook his head. 

“ But you will have to leave soon, for our part 
here is played out.” 

“ I tell you it is impossible.” 

“ Why?” 

“ Don’t you see that Veronica is lost?” 

“ What does that matter to you ? The um- 
brella handle is lost too.” 

Gyuri made an impatient gesture. 

“ What do I care about the umbrella ?” 

“ So it is the girl you want? You told me a 
different tale before dinner.” 

Gyuri turned round. 


279 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


“ I did not know then.” 

“ And now you know ?” 

“ Yes, now I know,” he answered shortly. 

“ And may I ask,” said Sztolarik, “ when did 
Amor light this flaming fire ? for you did not seem 
to take much interest in the girl before her dis- 
appearance.” 

“ And yet it is causing me at the present mo- 
ment all the tortures of hell. Believe me, my 
dear guardian, the loss of my inheritance seems 
to me a trifle beside the loss of Veronica.” 

Sztolarik was impressed by the apparent sin- 
cerity of Gyuri’s sorrow. 

“ That’s quite another thing,” he said. “If that 
is how you feel I will stay here with you. Let us 
go and look for the girl ourselves, and find out 
what she thinks on the subject.” 

When they went out, they found great confu- 
sion reigning in the courtyard, but Mrs. Adamecz 
was loudest in her lamentations. 

“ I knew this would be the end of it. A leg- 
end should never be tampered with by a mortal’s 
hand, or it will fall to pieces. Oh, our dear young 
lady ! She was God’s bride, and they wanted to 
make her the bride of a mortal, so God has taken 
her to Himself.” 

Sztolarik sprang toward her, and caught hold 
of her hand. 


Little Veronica is Taken Away 


“ What is that you say ? Have you heard any- 
thing?” 

“ Gundros, the cowherd, has just told us that 
he saw our young lady this morning running 
straight toward the Bjela Voda, across the mead- 
ows, and her eyes were red, as though she had 
been crying. There is only one conclusion to be 
drawn from that.” 

A lot of women and children were gathered 
round the kitchen door, and one of them had also 
seen Veronica earlier than Gundros had. 

“ Did she look sad?” asked Gyuri. 

“ She was crying.” 

“ Oh dear !” exclaimed Gyuri despairingly. 

“ We will look for her,” Sztolarik assured him. 

“ Where?” 

“ Out in the meadows or in the village, for it is 
certain she must be somewhere about, and we 
shall soon know where.” 

“ That will not be so easy,” sighed Gyuri, “ for 
we have no glass to show us things, as they have 
in fairy-tales.” 

“ I’ll have the whole village round us in a few 
minutes.” 

Gyuri shook his head doubtfully. Had Szto- 
larik gone mad to think he could call all the peo- 
ple together from the fields, from the woods, from 
everywhere round about? But the old lawyer 

281 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


was as good as his word. Veronica must be 
found at any cost. 

“ Where is his reverence ?” he asked of the by- 
standers. 

“ He has gone to the pond where the hemp is 
soaked, to see if the young lady has fallen in 
there.” 

“ Where is the bell-ringer?” 

“ Here I am, sir.” 

“ Go up at once into the tower, and ring the big 
bell.” 

“ But there is no fire !” 

“ That does not matter. If I order it to be 
done, you must do it. Do you know me?” 

Of course he knew Mr. Sztolarik, who had 
often been to Glogova since he had been made 
President of the Courts. So off ran Pal Kvapka, 
and in a few minutes the big fire-bell was tolling. 
There was no wind, and the sound was carried 
for miles around over the meadows, into the 
woods, over the mountains, and soon the people 
came running up from every side. It was as- 
tonishing how soon the villagers were assembled 
round the Presbytery. Those who saw it will 
never see its like again, until the Archangel Ga- 
briel sounds his trumpet at the last day. 

Sztolarik gazed placidly at the crowd assembled 
around him. 

“ Now,” he said, “ I have only to stand up in 
282 


Little Veronica is Taken Away 


their midst and ask them if any of them have seen 
Veronica. But it will be quite unnecessary, for 
Veronica herself will soon be here. Look out of 
the window,” he called up to the bell-ringer, “ and 
tell me if you can see the young lady.” 

“ Yes, I can see her, she is running through the 
Srankos’ maize-field.” 

“ She lives !” exclaimed Gyuri ecstatically, but 
his joy was soon at an end, for he thought: “ If 
there is nothing the matter with her she must have 
run away from me.” 

And he began to wonder if it would not have 
been better if she were dead, for then he could 
have believed she loved him, and could have loved 
her and sorrowed for her. 

The bell-ringer still went on tolling the bell, so 
Sztolarik called up to him : 

“ Stop tolling, you fool, can’t you ? Show us 
which way the Srankos’ maize-field lies.” 

The bell-ringer pointed to the right. 

“ You run on in front, Gyuri, and try and get 
out of her what is the matter with her.” 

But Gyuri was already gone, through the 
priest’s garden, across Magat’s clover-field, and 
his heart began to beat, for from there he could 
see Veronica in her green dress, without a hat, 
only a little red silk shawl round her shoulders. 
Across Szlavik’s corn-field, then into Gongoly’s 
meadow, and they were face to face. 

283 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


The girl drew a sobbing breath when she saw 
him, and began to tremble violently. 

“ Where is the fire ?” she asked. 

“ Don’t be frightened, there is no fire. My 
guardian had the bell rung so as to make you 
return home. Why did you run away ?” 

The girl turned pale, and bit her lip. 

“ It is enough if I know the reason,” she said 
in a low voice. “ Please leave me alone.” 

And she turned round as though to return to 
the woods. 

“ Veronica, for heaven’s sake don’t torture me; 
what have I done ?” 

The girl looked at him coldly, her eyes were 
like two bits of ice. 

“ Leave me alone,” she said, “ what do you 
want with me?” 

The young man caught hold of her hand, and 
Veronica did her best to free herself from his 
grasp, but he would not let go her hand till he had 
forced a ring on to her finger. 

“ That is what I want,” he said. 

“ That is what you want, is it ?” laughed the 
girl bitterly. “ And this is what I want !” And 
she tore off the ring and threw it away, across the 
meadow, into the grass. Poor Gyuri fell back a 
few steps. 

“Oh!” he exclaimed, “ why did you doit? 
Why?” 


284 


Little Veronica is Taken Away 


“ Do not try to deceive me any longer, Mr. 
Wibra. You should not put a ring on my finger, 
but on the umbrella, for that is what you really 
want to marry.” 

Gyuri began to understand what had taken 
place. 

“ Good heavens! You listened to our conver- 
sation !” 

“ Yes, I know all!” said Veronica, blushing 
slightly. “ It is no good your denying it.” 

“ I don’t wish to deny anything. But listen to 
me, please.” 

They walked quietly through the meadow, 
Gyuri talking, the girl listening, while the thou- 
sands of insects which peopled the fields flew 
away before their feet. Gyuri related the story 
of his life, and of his father’s, of the supposed in- 
heritance, of his search for it, and how he had 
gathered the threads together till they led him to 
Babaszek. The girl listened to him, first with re- 
proach in her eyes, then as judge, trying to find 
out the truth, and as the story began to interest 
her more and more, she became quite excited. 
Now she was neither plaintiff nor judge, only an 
interested listener, surprised that the threads led 
nearer and nearer to herself. Now Gyuri is 
speaking of Mrs. Miincz’s son, now Moricz is 
telling his story, which shows that the umbrella 
must be in Glogova. Then the forester’s wife 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


tells the tale of St. Peter’s bringing the umbrella 
to the orphan child. A few more words and the 
story was complete. 

Veronica knew all, and her eyes were swim- 
ming in tears. 

* “ Oh, dear, how dreadful ! Mrs. Adamecz 
burned the handle !” 

v ; “ God bless her for it !” said Gyuri brightly, 
seeing the girl’s depression, “ for now at least I 
can prove to you that I love you for yourself 
alone.” 

Veronica had taken off the small red shawl and 
was swinging it in her hand. Suddenly she 
caught hold of Gyuri’s arm, and smiled at him 
through her tears. 

“ Do you really mean that you still want to 
marry me ?” 

“ Of course. What do you say to it?” 

“ I say that . . .” She ceased speaking, for 
there was a queer feeling in her throat. 

“ Well?” 

“ That you are very volatile, and . . 

“ And?” 

“ And that . . . Let us run back and look for 
my ring.” 

With that she turned, and ran as fast as she 
could to the part of the meadow in which they had 
been standing when she threw the ring away. 
Gyuri could hardly keep up with her. 

286 


Little Veronica is Taken Away 


They looked for the ring a long time, but it 
was not to be found. And soon Father Janos ap- 
peared on the scene. 

“ I say, Gyuri, don’t say anything about the 
umbrella to my brother.” 

“ No, my darling, I will never mention it.” 

His reverence gave Veronica a good scolding. 

“ You naughty girl l Is that the way to be- 
have ? How you frightened us ! Of course you 
were chasing a butterfly?” 

“No, I was running away from one, but it 
caught me.” 

“ What, the butterfly?” 

“ Yes, that ugly, big butterfly standing beside 
you.” 

His reverence understood as much as he. was 
meant to, and set to work, too, to look for the ring. 
But they might have looked for it till Doomsday 
if Mr. Gongoly had not passed that way. Ve- 
ronica had quite despaired of finding the ring. 

“ Well, well, my dear,” said the nabob of Glo- 
gova, shaking back his long gray hair, “ never 
mind, trust in Gongoly, he will find it for you. 
There is only one way to do it, so in an hour’s 
time they wijl be making hay in this field.” 

, * * * * * * ■ * 

Though the grass was not two inches high (it 
had only been cut a fortnight before), Mr. Gon- 
goly sent his men there to mow it, with the result 

28 7 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


that next day the ring was safely resting on Ve- 
ronica’s finger. And for years the people spoke 
of the wonderful fact that in that year Mr. Gon- 
goly’s meadow gave two crops of hay, and it was 
always mentioned if any one spoke disparagingly 
of the Glogova fields. 

What more am I to say? I think I have told 
my story conscientiously. All the same there 
are some things that will never be known for cer- 
tain; for instance, what really became of Pal 
Gregorics* fortune, for there is no sign of it to 
this day. Was the supposed receipt in the han- 
dle of the umbrella or not? No one will ever 
know, not even little Matyko, who drank the 
water with three sparks in it. No king drinks 
such precious liquid as he did — if the story be 
true. 

The legend of the holy umbrella is still believed 
in in those parts. Mr. Sztolarik, who was fond 
of a gossip, certainly told his version of the story, 
how old Mimcz the Jew had made a present to 
Christianity of a holy relic, and so on ; but the old 
belief was strongly rooted, and he was only 
laughed at when he told his tale. And after all, 
there was something mystic and strange in the 
whole affair, and the umbrella had brought 
worldly goods to every one, Gyuri included, for it 
had given him the dearest little wife in the world. 
They were married very soon and never had such 

288 


Little Veronica is Taken Away 


a wedding taken place in Glogova before. Ac- 
cording to Veronica's special wish, every one who 
had been at the Mravucsans' supper was invited 
to the wedding, for she wanted all those who had 
been present at their first meeting to take part in 
their happiness. There were a lot of ,guests from 
Besztercebanya too, among them the mother of 
the bridegroom, in a black silk dress, the Presi- 
dent of the Courts, the mayor, and lots of others. 
Then there were the Urszinyis from Kopanyica, 
two young ladies froth Lehota in pink dresses, and 
Mrs. Miincz from Babaszek, with lovely golden 
earrings on. 

There were so many different kinds of convey- 
ances in Glogova that day, it would have taken a 
week to look at them all. 

Dear me, what a lovely procession it was too *, 
the peasants stood and gazed open-mouthed at all 
the people in their beautiful dresses, but most of 
all at the bride, who walked at the head of the 
procession in a lovely white dress with a long 
veil and a wreath of orange-blossoms. Oh, how 
pretty she was 1 

But the bridegroom was splendid too, in the 
same kind of dress in which the king has his por- 
trait painted sometimes. His sword, in a velvet 
sheath mounted in gold, clattered on the pave- 
ment as he walked up the church. 

They stood in a semicircle round the altar, each 

289 


St. Peter’s Umbrella 


lady with a nosegay of flowers in her hand, and 
perfumed to such an extent that the church 
smelled like a perfumer's shop. 

It was a little cool in the church, and the young 
ladies from Lehota were seen to shiver now and 
then in their thin pink dresses; but everything 
went off very well. 

The bridegroom spoke his “ yes ” in a loud, firm 
voice, the walls seemed to re-echo it, but the bride 
spoke- it almost in a whisper, it sounded like the 
buzzing of a fly. 

Poor child! She got so nervous toward the 
end of the ceremony that she began to cry. Then 
she looked for her handkerchief, but was there 
ever a pocket in a wedding dress ? She could not 
find it, so some one from behind offered her one, 
then turned and said : 

“ Button up your coat, Wladin !” 


THE END. 


By MAURUS JOKAI 


THE LION OF JANINA j Or, The Last Days of the 
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